Ever since his poignant sculpture of his dead father’s small, naked, vulnerable body (Dead Dad 1996-7) caused such awe and admiration in the Sensation exhibition at the Royal Academy in London in 1997, Ron Mueck’s work has come to epitomise a renewed interest among artists in a hyper-realistic sculptural representation of the human body. His work concentrates almost exclusively on the human figure, tracing our passage through life from birth to death. All his sculptures are made with an obsessive attention to realism, right down to the pores in the skin and the hair on the body.

Mueck’s figures are initially modelled in clay and then cast in fibre-glass or silicone, with individual details such as hair or fingernails applied afterwards. Often naked and suspended in states of self-consciousness, introspection or deep contemplation, his figures present both emotional and physical states of exposure. As viewers we experience a level of unease that is borne of a voyeuristic awkwardness, as though we have invaded some kind of personal space.

In addition to six important recent sculptures the Fondation Cartier show includes three produced especially for this event. A new film recording their creation has been made for the occasion by Gautier Deblonde. Revealing the reclusive artist at work further emphasizes the sensitivity and power of Ron Mueck’s sculpture and highlights its particular resonance for our time.

Ron Mueck was born in Melbourne, Australia in 1958, but has lived in London for over 20 years now. He honed his extraordinary skills in making life-like figures during several years in film and television. He worked on the Muppets and was responsible for the special effects in David Bowie’s film Labyrinth.

This exhibition, comprising over two hundred works, offers a reflection on the main themes that structured German thinking from 1800 to 1939. It places artworks and their artists—including Caspar David Friedrich, Paul Klee, Philipp Otto Runge and Otto Dix—in the intellectual context of their time, and confronts them with the writings of great thinkers, chief among whom is Goethe.

German history from the late 18th century to the eve of World War II is marked by the difficulty of establishing political unity at a time when the concept of a Europe of nations was gaining hold. A multi-faith country characterized by geographical discontinuity, the instability of its borders and different or even antagonistic political and cultural contexts, Germany needed to establish the underlying unity of all Germans, from Bavaria to the Baltic, from the Rhineland to Prussia.

The concept of Kultur, inherited from Enlightenment thought, seemed most likely to constitute the breeding ground from which a modern German tradition could emerge. The Napoleonic occupation fostered awareness of this unity and provided the political background for the beginnings of Romanticism, at the start of our timeline—while at its end, the rise of Nazism highlighted the tragic dimension of this concept, without managing to destroy it. The exhibition analyzes the role of the fine arts, from Romanticism to New Objectivity, in this period of great artistic innovation that sought to invent a new German tradition.

French painter Felix Ziem (1821-1911) was a nomadic artist, unclassifiable, eccentric and romantic. A great traveller, a close friend of the Barbizon painters, an admirer of both Claude Lorrain and Turner, he occupies a unique place within 19th century art. Ziem attracted a large clientele who loved his dreamy landscapes of Venice and Constantinople.

He began his long career in the shadow of Delacroix and spent the last years of his life in Montmartre near the workshop of the young Picasso. With this exhibition, the Petit Palais in Paris presents a hundred works from the Ziem donation, made to the museum in 1905. Water and sky dominate in these luminous landscapes which made him so famous. It is also a real treat to see his travel notebooks and sketches made from life. Visitors can admire his copies of the Italian and Dutch masters and his sketches which give free rein to colourful impulses, revealing the secrets of his studio, and showing us another side to Ziem.

Curator: Isabelle Collet, Chief Conservationist at the Petit Palais and Charles Villeneuve de Janti, Conservationist at the Petit Palais

Yahya and Mehdi Qotbi's exhibition presents seventeen UAO's (unidentified artistic objects).

Invisible Light is an encounter between a painter and a sculptor – between two and three dimensions, relief and color, oil and bronze, words and shapes. The calligrapher-artist Mehdi Qotbi and the sculptor and designer of objets d'art Yahya present seventeen works that encapsulate the dialogue between the two artists in an imaginary language that freely reinterprets the calligraphic tradition in Islamic art. Together the two artists have created a series of intricately interwoven signs and letters that create a new form of abstraction.

The three-dimensional calligraphy is infused by light that is by turns immanent and transcendent, conferring a quasi-magical aura on the sculptures, shown for the first time in Zaha Hadid's unique new exhibition space at the Institut du monde arabe in Paris. The sculptures are immobile, yet somehow shimmer and dance, suggesting a world of light and shade. The abstract forms consist of arbitrary signs bearing no explicit message, yet still recount an epic, poetic narrative of the encounter between East and West, where cultures change each other through exchanges, and where artists invent contemporaneity by dreaming of an age-old calligraphic tradition with universal relevance.

Institut du monde arabe
1, rue des Fossés-Saint-Bernard
Place Mohammed V
75236 - Paris Cedex 05

Sylvia Sleigh gained critical success in the 1960s and '70s as an important instigator of New York's feminist art scene. Known for her explicit male nudes that quote and subvert the art historical tradition of male gaze onto female body, in her portraits feature artists, musicians and writers of both genders, dressed and naked, representing a pantheon of significant cultural figures. Exploring contemporary portraiture as an intimate dialogue between artist and sitter, Sleigh's practice elevated her subjects, aiming to remove objectification from art. In these portraits, she combined bold sensuality with a personal feminism that placed her at the heart of a discourse on power, representation, and gender.

Sylvia Sleigh (1916–2010) was born in Wales. In 1961 she moved to New York, where she spent the rest of her life.

CAPC musée d'art contemporain de Bordeaux
Entrepôt. 7, rue Ferrère
F-33000 Bordeaux
France

Brhams, Schumann, Rachmaninoff

Alexei Volodin, piano

Andrea Gabrieli / Giovanni Gabrieli
Entrata : Intonatione d'organo e Canzon sesta a 7 voci

Giovanni Gabrieli (1553-1612): Introïto : In ecclesis a 14 voci

Claudio Monteverdi

Ensemble La Fenice
Jean Tubéry, conductor
William Dongois, cornette
Stéphanie Pfister, violin
Katharina Heutjer, violin
Stéfan Legée, trombone
Franck Poitrineau, trombone

Cité de la musique
221, avenue Jean Jaurès
75019 Paris

Poulenc, Debussy, Duparc, Aulis Sallinen, Joseph Marx

Karita Mattila, soprano
Ville Matvejeff, piano

Cité de la musique
221, avenue Jean Jaurès
75019 Paris

Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin: Piano sonatas

Varduhi Yeritsyan, piano
Texts and poems: Fedor Dostoievsky, Vladimir Maiakovski, Marina Tsvetaeva
Olivier Py: narrator

Lieder by Schubert, Richard Strauss and mélodies by Reynaldo Hahn, Ernest Chausson, Gabriel Fauré, Henri Duparc and Eva Dell’Acqua

Diana Damrau, soprano
Xavier de Maistre, harp

Alessandro Striggio: Mass "Missa sopra Ecco si beato giorno" à quarante parties vocales
Motet "Ecce beatum lucem" à quarante parties vocales

Francesco Corteccia

Le Concert Spirituel
Hervé Niquet, conductor
 

Cité de la musique
221, avenue Jean Jaurès
75019 Paris

Cité de la musique
221, avenue Jean Jaurès
75019 Paris

L'Oiseau de feu
Music: Igor Stravinsky   
Choreography: Maurice Béjart
(Opéra national de Paris, 1970) 

L'Apres-midi d'un faun
Music: Claude Debussy  Musique 
Choreography: Vaslav Nijinski  
Sets and costunes: Léon Bakst 

Afternoon of a faun
Music: Claude Debussy  
Choreography: Jerome Robbins  
Costumes: Irene Sharaff 
Sets and costumes after Jean Rosenthal

Boléro: Premiere
Music: Maurice Ravel 
Chorerography: Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Damien Jalet, Marina Abramovic  Conception: Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Damien Jalet  
Sets: Marina Abramovic  Scénographie 
Costumes: Riccardo Tisci  
Lighting: Urs Schönebaum

Les Étoiles, les Premiers Danseurs et le Corps de Ballet
Orchestre de l'Opéra national de Paris
Vello Pähn, conductor

L.A. Dance Project
Benjamin Millepied, artistic director

23 May: Moving parts - Quintett - Reflections
24 May: Reflections - Winterbranch - Quintett
25 May: (matinée) : Reflections - Winterbranch - Quintett
25 May: Moving parts - Quintett - Reflections

Winterbranch (1964)
Choreography: Merce Cunningham
Music: La Monte Young (2 Sounds - (April 1960))
Concept, Costumes, lighting: Robert Rauschenberg

Moving Parts  (2012)
Choreography: Benjamin Millepied
Music: Nico Muhly
Visual concept: Christopher Wool
Costumes: RODARTE

Quintett (1993)
Choreography: William Forsythe
Music: Gavin Bryers

Reflections (world premiere)
Choreography: Benjamin Millepied
Music: David Lang
Visual concept: Barbara Kruger

Kyle Eastwood Quintet

Yes. Kyle Eastwood is the son of Hollywood film star and director Clint Eastwood whose interest in jazz has been well-documented.

Kyle Eastwood grew up in Carmel, California, as the eldest son of actor Clint Eastwood. As a child he listened to records of jazz stars such as Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Miles Davis playing in the house. His father had been attending the Monterey Jazz Festival since it began in 1958 and when his children were born it became a yearly family outing. His latest album, ”The View From Here” (Jazzvillage, Harmonia Mundi), embraces this musical heritage which goes back to the soundtrack of his youth when his father introduced him to the joys of the bass line.

Kyle Eastwood, bass
Graeme Blevins, sax
Quentin Collins, trumpet
Martyn Kaine, drums
Andrew McCormack, piano

Georg Friedrich Handel: Giulio Cesare
Libretto: Nicola Francesco Haym
after Giacomo Francesco Bussani
Sung in Italian 

Emmanuelle Haïm, conductor
Laurent Pelly: stage director and costumes
Chantal Thomas: sets
Agathe Mélinand: dramaturgy and collaboration with the stage director 
Joël Adam: lighting
Béatrice Malleret: chorus master 

Cast

Lawrence Zazzo Giulio Cesare
Varduhi Abrahamyan Cornelia
Karine Deshayes Sesto
Sandrine Piau Cleopatra
Christophe Dumaux Tolomeo
Paul Gay Achilla
Dominique Visse Nireno
Jean-Gabriel Saint-Martin Curio

Orchestra and Chorus of the Concert d’Astrée

Palais Garnier
Place de l’Opéra
75001 Paris

Amilcare Ponchielli: La Gioconda
Drama in four acts (1876)
Libretto: Arrigo Boito 
Performed in Italian

Daniel Oren, conductor 
Pier Luigi Pizzi: stage director, sets and costumes 
Sergio Rossi: lighting 
Gheorghe Iancu: choreography 
Patrick Marie Aubert: chorus master 

Cast

Violeta Urmana: La Gioconda
Luciana D’Intino (2 to 17 may) / Elena Bocharova (20 to 31 may): Laura Adorno
Orlin Anastassov: Alvise Badoero
María José Montiel: La Cieca
Marcelo Alvarez: Enzo Grimaldo
Claudio Sgura: Barnaba