Inaugurated in 1989, the modern theater opens a showroom of more than 2,700 seats, a 500-seat amphitheater, a 230-seat studio, sets and costumes manufacturing workshops, reception halls, including local administrations. At the Palais Garnier, the staircase of honor offers a new style of decoration which makes explode. From the two golden giants pass the banisters of the stairs.



The installation of Claude Lévêque was realized on the occasion of the 350th anniversary of the Paris Opera. The year 2019 marks a double anniversary, the 350 years of the Paris Opera, whose historical stage is located at the Palais Garnier, and the 30th anniversary of the Opéra Bastille, which Lévêque also crowned with a luminous diadem for the occasion. The ONP gave carte blanche to the 65-year-old French artist who designed this set of installations entitled "Saturnales". In Garnier, the emblematic and touristy Parisian monument of Lévêque, whose oblique neon lights were diffused in the light of the rotunda, which is reflected in the mirrors. "It’s like a carousel, an invitation to dance, to waltz," says Claude Lévêque to AFPDeux big tires, two big tires and one of the two large wheelbases have attracted attention and criticism of the networks social. .

Two gold rubbish
These two gold waste should remain throughout the year 2019 Garnier? Happy birthday, Paris Opera, tweeted a surfer. Lamentable, grotesque, scandalous! or how to sack a magnificent and emblematic place under the pretext of contemporary art !!! ", outraged by another Twitter user." Palais Garnier is sponsored by Michelin? "," It’s the show or else, "jokes about the social network. The installation also reacts Didier Rykner, art historian and founder of the site



"For a year, if we want to admire the total work of Garnier, we can not do without Claude Lévêque’s gold tires, we are taxed," he said, criticizing more the approach of the Paris Opera. itself "Command" is passed on to an artist to install a work and not a place that needs it - and God knows there are no places that could be embellished even by the most mediocre installations, but where nothing was necessary because harmony reigns there, "writes the historian.


The artist defends himself
These tires are not there to provoke ", assures the AFP the artist who rather envisages a constructive dialogue with an interior architecture." A lot of pleasure "to conceive this project imagined in a dialectic of light and darkness , contrasts and dialogues between old and contemporary artsPaul MacCarthy (an inflatable sextoy of the artist) Place Vendome, erected at 24 meters high, had caused a torrent Indignant reactions In 2015, the "vagina of the Queen" of Anish Kapoor British was vandalized in the park of the Palace of Versailles.



Regular controversies around contemporary installations
More recently, the sculpture "Bouquet of tulips" by the American Jeff Koons, which was to be erected on the forecourt of the Palais de Tokyo and the Museum of Modern Art, was finally destined for another place facing the challenge of the Parisians opposed this installation. In Garnier, also in the rotunda, Claude Lévêque added all around the basin called "Pythia", under the large central staircase, chandeliers bearing groups of fuchsia lamps at Opera Bastille, built 30 years ago under François Mitterrand, a giant diadem of 16 luminous masts illuminates the neighborhood during the last ten days of the night, tribute to the legs apart dancers and dancers of Swan Lake, according to Lévêque. artist with his first collaboration with the Opera: in 2010, he was the scenographer of ballet choreographer Siddhartha, Angelin Preljocaj. The last lake, The lost lake, on the underground lake and the unknown corners of the Opera Garnier, the Paris Opera celebrates in 2019 its 350 years with the slogan "modern since 1669", date of its foundation by Louis XIV, under the name of the Royal Academy of Music.
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