After “Paris Romantique (1815-1858)” and “Paris 1900, Ville spectacle”, the final part of the series, “Le Paris de la Modernité (1905-1925)”, opened on 14th November. Featuring 400 works of art, including paintings, jewellery, cars and furniture, the Petit Palais invites visitors to discover an effervescent and cosmopolitan Paris.
From 14th November 2023 to 14th April 2024
Gauche – Robert Delaunay, Paris – Die Frau und der Turm (Ville de Paris – La femme et la tour), 1925, © BPK, Berlin, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / image Staatsgalerie Stuttgart
Droite – Tamara de Lempicka, Saint-Moritz, 1929 © ADAGP, Paris 2023 ©Tamara Art Heritage / photo François Lauginie
Le Pari(s) de la Modernité explores an era irrigated by the fascination of artists, fashion designers, designers, architects, playwrights and dancers with the technological and industrial dream. The value of the machine is a topos, as a source of extraordinary inspiration as much as a universal model of this ” modern life “.
Chagall et Vassilli © Paris Musées / Le Petit Palais
The auto and aviation show © Paris Musées / Le Petit Palais
The exhibition explores this new aesthetic, guided by an ideal of universalism, capable of absorbing and “synthesising” the forms of the past and the so-called “primitive” arts: artists set off in search of new inspirations, integrating African and Oceanian sources and imaginary worlds, that became for them the muses of a new artistic language.
From Montmartre to Montparnasse, via the Champs-Elysées, Paris, Capital of the Arts is the main character of the exhibition. It is the setting for constant emulation, for a generation of creators committed to experimentation. A world-city where a ceaseless, cosmopolitan party flourishes.
Le Pari(s) de la modernité is a dense exhibition that uses a wide range of media – painting, sculpture, architecture, designer clothes, aeroplanes, cars, the press, cinema and photography – to trace the richness and profusion of an era.
The exhibition is divided into several sections, with architecture taking pride of place. It is the perfect embodiment of this modern drive for social progress, driven by a kind of “futuristic” fascination (“faster, higher, stronger”).
Architecture lovers will be able to admire studies by the sculptor Bourdelle for the Champs Élysées theatre, built by the Perret brothers in 1913. There is also a contemporary model of Mallet-Stevens’s design for the Pavillon du Renseignement et du Tourisme, which was intended to celebrate (for the exhibition of decorative arts in 1925) the progress of the industry through the use of reinforced concrete and the erection of a spectacular bell tower more than 35 meters high.
Exhibition curator : Annick Lemoine, director of the Petit Palais, general curator of the exhibition and Juliette Singer, Chief Heritage Curator, exhibition curator
Petit Palais
Av. Winston Churchill, 75008 Paris
from 14the November 2023 until 14th April 2024
