Posts from — December 2008

The Jeff Koons Versailles exhibition, a major retrospective of sixteen works displayed in the apartments and gardens at the Chateau de Versailles, has been running since September, was due to close in December, but has just been extended to the 4^th January. Although 500,000 visitors have seen the exhibition so far, the extension has set off a new flurry of protests to add to the voices of various groups who protested at the start against kitch pop art being presented in this world heritage site.

In an open letter to President Sarkozy, but given to the press last Wednesday, Charles-Emmanuel de Bourbon-Parme, who claims to be a direct descendent of Louis XIV, asks M. Sarkozy to put an end to the discord by organizing the withdrawal of these disgraceful objects, which is how he sees the Jeff Koons works. M. de Bourbon-Parme believes that he is voicing the general feeling of the French people and of foreign admirers of the chateau de Versailles, when he says that the exhibition is an insult to the memory of Louis XIV and Marie-Antoinette.

Monsieur B-P’s words set me off looking for other descendants of the French royals, and there is a list of all 121 of them on Wikipedia , in which he is number 65. Number one, the current ‘pretender’, is Louis Alphonse, Duke of Anjou who, if he were king, would be Louis XX.

Meanwhile, I shall keep my memories of Versailles intact from my last visit in June. On that day, as you can see, the flowers were out, a storm threatened but did not eventuate, and there wasn’t a large red heart, a silver rabbit, or a golden Michael Jackson in sight.

Nicole Kidman in The Age, 4 Dec 2008

Australia, the movie, in Paris! Nicole Kidman is in Paris with husband Keith Urban and their baby Sunday Rose to promote her latest film; while here, they have also managed to visit the Picasso exhibition at the Grand Palais. You can read all about it in my hometown newspaper the Melbourne Age. The film premiered in Sydney in November. Meanwhile, in Australia (the country) Australia the film is not getting very good reviews. But I think I should see it, as this will likely be the prevalent view of Australia internationally for a while—or at least among those who see the film—and I may need to dispute that!

I’ve never discovered at what hour the day begins for the stallholders of the Place d’Aligre market. But if I awake at seven to stagger to the bathroom on my sleep-stiffened legs I can hear small sounds of almost-muted activity from the place (or square, but in reality a large semi-circle) in front of my apartment many floors below. Even though I can return to bed for another hour’s sleep, I cannot resist going into my salon to peek from the floor-to-ceiling window that looks over the place; and then I can just make out, by the light of the dozen or so lanterns that light the square, that the stalls are indeed already lined up in neat rows under their blue-and-white striped awnings in the gloomy dawn of this Paris winter.

The stallholders start packing up any time after about one o’clock in the afternoon. The hour differs each day but I haven’t managed to work out the pattern, although Saturday seems to be the earliest pack-up day. They leave wooden fruit crates and bags of leftovers around the square in about eight piles of varying neatness. As the last vans are departing, the gleaners move in. On a cold, wet day there will only be two or three at most, as there are today. They pick through the piles, even opening some of the black plastic bags. Today there are two women filling small plastic bags in this way. At another pile, obviously left behind by a clothing vendor, a man is trying on a waterproof jacket. He inspects it carefully first, then removes his own jacket, and his vest. Then he puts on the ‘new’ jacket. He does it up, flexes his shoulders to check the size. Satisfied, he leaves it on, folding up his previous garments neatly and putting them into a plastic bag.