Impressionists All 3Rd Edition of the Festival, from 16/04 to 26/09/2016
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PRESS KIT IMPRESSIONISTS ALL 3RD EDITION OF THE FESTIVAL, FROM 16/04 TO 26/09/2016 normandie-impressionniste.eu CONTENTS Editorial .................................................................................................................................... 7 Presentation ............................................................................................................................. 8 4 Questions Put To Jérôme Clément & Erik Orsenna ..........................................................10 The Major Exhibitions ............................................................................................................11 Festival of Many Facets .........................................................................................................33 Musical Interlude ...................................................................................................................51 Festive Appointments ............................................................................................................65 Culture for the People ...........................................................................................................68 Publishing/Writing/Cinema .................................................................................................72 Seminars .................................................................................................................................73 But Also... ...............................................................................................................................74 A Festival Approved by the Grand Tour ................................................................................81 Contrat de destination / The Impressionist Train ................................................................82 Associated Events in Île-de-France ......................................................................................83 The status of "festival-goer" .................................................................................................84 The 12 circuits suggested by the Festival ............................................................................86 A Festival 2.0 ..........................................................................................................................88 Founder Members, Institutional Partners and Member Municipalities ............................90 The Scientific Committee ......................................................................................................91 The Festival in Figures ...........................................................................................................93 Partners and Sponsors ..........................................................................................................94 Media Partners .....................................................................................................................100 The Festival Team.................................................................................................................101 7 EDITORIAL Held from 16 April to 26 September 2016, the third Festival Normandie Impressionniste will continue the direction taken by the two previous editions, which attracted 1.8 million visitors. This year the event has a particular importance but Normandie Impressionniste had already found its way into every corner of the territory and, in a certain way, heralded the new administrative region of Normandy. This is the first event of such scope to be held in the new region and, once again, this vast array of cultural activities, exhibitions, live shows, dance performances, operas, guinguettes, film programmes and seminars will attest the cultural vitality of Normandy to its French and international visitors. The theme for 2016 is Impressionism in portraits: portraits in the classic sense of the term but also in more contemporary interpretations. The goal is to place the human element at the heart of the Festival: though portraying a period in the nineteenth century with its society, recreations, women, children and artists, the Festival is also interested in Pierre BERGÉ contemporary versions of the portrait, like President of the GIP Normandie Impressionniste selfies. It explores the notion of representation, Laurent FABIUS of oneself and others, as well as its value, Vice-President of the GIP Normandie Impressionniste, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Development message and significance 140 years on. Jérôme CLÉMENT The 2016 Festival Normandie Impressionniste Chief Administrator of the Festival Normandie Impressionniste Erik ORSENNA has everything on its side to ensure this year President of the Scientific Committee of the Festival will be another spectacular success. Normandie Impressionniste Left: Auguste Renoir, The Excursionist (detail), 1888. Oil on canvas, 61.5 x 50 cm. Le Havre, MuMa, musée d’Art moderne André Malraux - © 2005 MuMa 9 INTRODUCTION For its third edition, the Festival Normandie Impressionniste has chosen the theme Impressionism In Portraits. Portrait of an era: an exchange of looks A portrait always conceals a form of self-portrait of the artist, but also that of the era in which it was painted. In Normandy, the second half of the The heart of the festival is the human element The complexity of an artist’s temperament can also be nineteenth century was marked by the arrival of the Collective and popular, this theme offers the potential revealed: Monet, who was both mythical and sensitive, railway, the development of seaside holiday resorts and for many new directions to be followed: the trajectories who loved botany and literature, split between reality with industrialization. of the artists, the theme of the human figure and imagination; Caillebotte was a painter of the bourgeoisie People were attracted to the coast’s great hotels from body, analysis of social circles, and the study of the of Paris but loved to go sailing on the Seine; the Neo- Paris and even abroad. In both France and Europe as popular and intellectual social context at the time of Impressionist star Signac was close to Monet and always a whole, travel was fashionable and the circulation of Impressionism, an epoch during which great changes charismatic. A monographic exhibition also allows the ideas and models that went with it. took place. The theme is an invitation to rethink our characters of artists less well-known to the public to be The theme Impressionism In Portraits aims to present approach to Impressionism, made possible by the discovered, such as that of Eugène Boudin, the man who the portrait of an era that was undergoing rapid social combined action of the region’s museums, cultural encouraged Monet to take up painting out of doors. and technical change. In Rouen and Le Havre, the institutions and public. The Festival wishes to accomplish, to the best of successful economy gave rise to new collectors, and new its ability, its mission to show off to advantage the ways to appreciate and conceive modern art, which are patrimony of the network of museums in Normandy. to be considered in a wider context. All the cultural and educational organizations in the It was also the time of the appearance in the region of region (museums, art centres, schools, universities, new symbols of modernity, such as the constructions in etc.) are invited to find ways to publicize the theme of iron that today invite us to consider the history of towns the 2016 Festival, with reference to the history of art and the thinking that underlay their development. and contemporary art practices (photography, video, Society as a whole was also described. More than performance, and so on). anyone else, Marcel Proust portrayed the bourgeois Espace d’art FL-Anthony Vérot, Louise In Front a Mirror society of the Belle Époque. In his volume In the Shadow The figure in majesty of Young Girls in Flower, he describes Balbec (Cabourg) The Impressionists not only invented the modern he favoured outlines typical of Ingres and developed and the social life he knew so well. The Impressionists landscape, they also painted new forms of presenting a realism that was contemporary with the spread did not always follow this line: as Millet, a painter from the face in their embrace of the figure and social and of photography, which he practised himself. Degas the Manche, had done before them, they took an interest personal iconographic themes. Their importance to the liked painting dandies, with their top hats, canes and in the humble – the people of the sea, country folk, and Olivier Mériel, The Twins. history of portraiture, figure painting and the nude is by yellow gloves. With his sometimes ferocious eye, he bohemian society. Camille Pissarro in particular made no means insignificant. Following the example of Manet, depicted milliners and ballerinas, one of his favourite this one of his specialities. Photography was a leading Remarkable portraits one of Monet’s ambitions was to integrate the human subjects. Figure painting was also a central theme in medium in this modern revolution. The Festival will Increasingly, the public is taking an interest in figure into outdoor scenes. This was the motivation of Impressionism as painted by foreigners, in particular in emphasize the use of this medium and its contemporary monographic exhibitions of artists. Retrospectives Manet’s first great composition, Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe. the work of the American artists James Abbott Whistler developments. are enjoying particular