Nuit Blanche 2021, © Anaïs Costet
For the 20th edition of Nuit blanche – yes, already twenty years – artistic director Kitty Hartl has set the bar high. Her scenography is inspired, she assures, by the Garden of Earthly Delights, by the Flemish painter Hieronymus Bosch. If it is true, then the party will be a success because this triptych on wood dating from 1500 (and kept at the Prado Museum in Madrid) is both one of the most beautiful and mysterious paintings in the history of art. .
“I like this itinerant and free event that must be reinvented every year in order to take over the streets of Paris,” says the artist who imagined a route in the center of Paris, on a path going from the town hall, at the Canopée des Halles, via the Académie du climat and the Théâtre du Châtelet. This walking route lasts around 2 hours,” explains Kitty Hartl, already at the helm during the 2005 Nuit blanche.
Ecology will be at the heart of its “garden of delights 2022” which presents itself as a suspended, magical moment full of surprises. After the storm of the 2021 edition and the cancellation due to confinement the previous year – that of Covid – it is a safe bet that the Nuit Blanche will attract people this year.
Here is already a taste of it, in the form of a program.
► Clos des Blancs-Manteaux
From 19pm to 22pm, at the Clos des Blancs-Manteaux: Free and itinerant concert.
▼ Closed of the White Mantles
21 Rue des Blancs Manteaux, 75004 Paris
► Nelson Mandela Garden
From 19pm to 5am, at the Nelson Mandela garden : Monumental digital triptych – Speculum is a digital and monumental interpretation of the Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch using 3D imagery, by the SMACK collective.
▼ Nelson Mandela Garden
All. Jules Supervielle, 75001 Paris
► Théâtre du Châtelet
From 19 pm to 2 am, at the Théâtre du Châtelet: Burlesque show – The Cabaret New Burlesque reinvents the art of striptease into a discipline that is as sparkling as it is politically engaged. Five performers with evocative names, "straight out of a Hieronymus Bosch triptych," flirt with taboos, but with elegance.
▼TChâtelet Theater
2 Rue Edouard Colonne, 75001 Paris
► Town Hall Square
From 20 pm to 2 am, on the City Hall square : a monumental visual and sound installation. A ballet of visual energy, by Mariona Benedito and the Cube.BZ collective. A magnetic evocation of old Paris inspired by the Velvet Underground and the Lumière brothers.
▼ City Hall square
Town hall square
► MAIF Social Club
From 18 p.m. to 23:30 p.m., the MAIF Social Club presents "The Song of the Forests," an exhibition-performance that raises awareness about the sixth mass extinction. A sensitive, visual, and auditory journey into the heart of the woods. From the roots to the canopy, from Europe to Latin America, the exhibition invites you to "become forested."
The Standing Monkey company takes us into zoomorphic and musical performances that show the cohabitation of the living through hybrid metamorphoses of mischievous monkeys, monitor lizards and ghost animals. The show Comme une meute is by Jade Duviquet and Cyril Casmèze.
▼ MAIF Social Club
37 Rue de Turenne, 75003 Paris
► Victor Hugo House
The artist Valérie Sonnier draws a portrait of Victor Hugo which connects us to his lively practice of spiritualism. Because from the Place des Vosges to Hauteville House in Guernsey, the writer “frequented” ghostly apparitions.
On the program, a super 8 film made in Paris and Guernsey, photographs of ghosts, drawings of Hauteville House, a ouija board, transparent images in old frames take place in Victor Hugo's apartment. Valérie Sonnier's performance is called “Everything in infinity says something to someone.”
▼ Victor Hugo House
6 Place des Vosges, 75004 Paris
► Cognacq-Jay Museum
From 19 p.m. to 23 p.m. at the Cognacq-Jay Museum: Lantern with a drop of water. Installation in the garden of the museum's private mansion. Francisco Tropa installs a Lantern, whose shadow play evokes the passage of time.
In partnership with the Museum of Modern Art in Paris, the France-Portugal Season 2022 and the support of the Jocelyn Wolff gallery. On view until October 23.
▼ Cognac-Jay Museum
8 Rue Elzevir, 75003 Paris
► Museum of Arts and Crafts
From 19pm to 1am at the Musée des Arts et Métiers: Full Beam (installation – performance) As a preview to the Driving Licence exhibition,
The museum puts the spotlight on the automobile. The works question our relationship with the car, in both its usefulness and its materiality. Exhibition from October 18, 2022 to May 7, 2023.
▼ Museum of Arts and Crafts
60 Rue Réaumur, 75003 Paris
► Museum of Jewish Art and History
From 20 p.m. to midnight , at the Museum of Jewish Art and History: " We will not be the last of our kind." Video artist Mili Pecherer has created a multi-screen audiovisual installation at the invitation of the Museum of Jewish Art and History (mahJ), where the Franco-Israeli artist intertwines the story of the Flood with her concerns about ecology.
▼ Museum of Jewish Art and History
Hôtel de Saint-Aignan, 71 Rue du Temple, 75003 Paris
► Town Hall Reception Hall
From 19 p.m. to 1 a.m., in the town hall's reception hall : Singing and macaron sculpting. Chrystabell, singer and muse of David Lynch, performs her Lynchian repertoire, while pastry chef Pierre Hermé creates a large macaron sculpture. Discover the garden covered with 15000 macarons, a gift from the pastry chef. Please note: only one macaron per person.
▼ Hôtel de ville
Pl. de l’Hôtel de Ville, 75004 Paris
► Climate Academy
From 18:30 pm to 23 pm, the Climate Academy presents an evening dedicated to the festive relationship between art and ecology. The program includes shows, performances, exhibitions, debates, workshops, and other surprises. Pierre Ardouin, with the design collective Architectes Kino, will present sculptures and an immersive installation: Purple Rain. A nostalgic rock ballad under a purple rain, a tender thought steeped in pop culture references.
▼ Climate Academy
2 Pl. Baudoyer, 75004 Paris
► Place Beaubourg
From 19 p.m. to 1 a.m., on Place Beaubourg: monumental foam sculpture. Stéphanie Lüning activates colors in three dimensions by generating a thick foam that curiously emerges from the ventilation shafts of the Centre Pompidou. The German artist sculpts foam in public spaces as part of her "Foam Actions," a series of ephemeral, site-specific, performative installations. Her multicolored foam assemblages spill over, cascade down the slope, and transform the landscape.
▼ Center Pompidou Place Georges Pompidou
Place Georges-Pompidou, 75004 Paris
► The Canopy of Les Halles
From 20 p.m. to 2 a.m. at La Canopée des Halles: Fashion show, clubbing, and participatory performance. Maud Le Pladec x koché present a guerrilla fashion show. Static Shot: ballet from the Centre Chorégraphique National – CCN Ballet de Lorraine, directed by Petter Jacobsson and his 25 dancers. A close-quarters choreography by Maud Le Pladec. Also not to be missed: choreographer and dancer Mounia Nassangar, one of the leading figures in France in waaking (free and joyful dance).
▼ The Canopy of Les Halles
101 Rue Berger, 75002 Paris
► Holocaust Memorial
From 19 p.m. to 2 a.m. at the Shoah Memorial: Gazes, Minds (exhibition-installation). For the first time since his recent passing, the Shoah Memorial pays tribute to Christian Boltanski with two powerfully evocative and moving works to be discovered outside and in the crypt, the vibrant heart of the Memorial. A documentary retracing the artist's life accompanies the presentation. In partnership with the Marian Goodman Gallery.
▼ Shoah Memorial
17 Rue Geoffroy l'Asnier, 75004 Paris
► Place des Vosges
From 20 p.m. to 0:30 a.m. in the Place des Vosges : a visual and sound installation, "The Garden of Lilies," by visual artist Pierre Delavie, which draws on an old Parisian legend recounting how the statue of Louis XIII escapes on certain evenings to take a moonlit stroll. His image appears and disappears among the trees, as if absorbed by an ancient forest. Around the King are sculptures called "The Clutter," straight out of a painting by Hieronymus Bosch.
▼ PVosges lake
Place des Vosges, 75004 Paris
► Forney Library
From 19 p.m. to 1 a.m., at the Forney Library , installations depicting spectacular, fragmented, and ephemeral landscapes—drawn in chalk on large blackboards—magnify the courtyard of the Forney Library. This is an opportunity for this nature, transformed by Juliette Somnolet, to come to life in the courtyard of the Hôtel de Sens, which houses the Forney Library . Meanwhile, Jack McNiven explores forms in motion, landscapes, and the interplay between landscape and drawing.
▼ Forney Library
1 Rue du Figuier, 75004 Paris
► Paris-Centre Town Hall
From 19pm to 2am at the Paris-Centre Town Hall : Photography and performance. Ritualized gestures through sport that becomes sacred art.
The performative reading created by the SUZANNE group, within a scenography developed in collaboration with and incorporating photographs by visual artist Diane Hymans, is titled FAIX. It illuminates performative, visual, and discursive bodies that question our relationship to art and sport. And while these exposed bodies may experience ecstasy or silent suffering, the space itself resonates with the voices of the performers reading transcripts from sports journalists.
▼ Paris-Centre Town Hall
2 Rue Eugene Spuller, 75003 Paris
► National Archives Garden
From 8 p.m. to 2 a.m., at the National Archives Garden . We're taking a trip down memory lane with a symbol of popular celebration: cotton candy. The "Dodge on Cotton Candy," reminiscent of the muscle cars of the 60s and 70s, boasts a powerful 16-valve V20 engine and runs on cotton candy like fuel. It thus reflects American culture and aesthetics. Free cotton candy will be distributed (while supplies last).
▼ Garden of the National Archives
60 Rue des Francs Bourgeois, 75003 Paris
Text: Katia Barillot
01.09.22
