At the beginning of the XIV century, Florence was one of the great metropolises of Europe, perhaps the greatest. Densely populated and beautiful, it was as rich as Paris and much more than London. A manufacturing centre of the first magnitude, capital of trade, and centre of finance to which the international business community as well as sovereigns turned. Trade flourished, well-being spread, public works hummed, the arts and products of the intellect gained ground. Dante wrote the Divine Comedy (the journey to the underworld takes place precisely in the year 1300), Arnolfo laid the bases of Santa Maria del Fiore, Giotto designed the soaring bell tower and, in a few years, the future Palazzo Vecchio was built, along with a great new circle of walls and the road network which opened the city to the world.

Praised by his contemporaries Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, admired by Leonardo da Vinci, and copied by Michelangelo, Giotto di Bondone (c. 1267–1337) has been seen down the centuries as the instigator of a painting revolution without precedent since ancient times.

The itinerant career that took the artist from Florence, where he mostly worked, to Milan—but also to Assisi, Rimini, Padua, Rome, Naples, and perhaps even Avignon—unleashed a veritable shock wave throughout Italy and, later, in Europe. Such was his reputation, and so numerous were his commissions, that from 1290 onwards he worked with assistants, known as compagni. Some of them followed him in the course of his travels, while certain local recruits—in Naples for example—would stay on after his departure and play their part in the development of independent artistic breeding grounds.  

In thirty works—paintings, drawings, illuminations, and sculptures—mostly from French collections but also from abroad, the exhibition highlights Giotto's inventions while at the same time addressing such questions as the (notably Franciscan) networks that made his works known, the organization of his workshop (or workshops), and the typology of his painted panels—all matters on which extensive recent research has shed new light.

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.

For the first time, this exhibition unites the great names in the Impressionist movement around the theme of reflections on the water, thanks to loans from all over the world of prestigious paintings by Monet, Renoir, Sisley, Caillebotte, Seurat and many more.

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

For the first time, artists left the city and shifted their studios to the country, an important sign of what was to come. The Impressionists no longer looked for subjects in books or their own imaginations, but focused on real life in these newly conquered territories, the many holiday resorts and leisure places that mushroomed along the water’s edge.

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

Giuseppe Verdi: Requiem

Daniele Gatti, conductor

Barbara Frittoli,  soprano
Sonia Ganass,i  mezzo-soprano
Fabio Sartori,  tenor
Matti Salminen , bass

Orchestre National de France
Chœur de Radio France 
Piero Monti, conductor

Jordi Savall: "Bal.Kan" (Honey and Blood)

Jordi Savall and his team explore the music of the gypsy and Sephardic Jewish diaspora in the Balkans.

Cité de la musique
221, avenue Jean Jaurès
75019 Paris

Sibelius: Le Cygne de Tuonela
Shostakovitch: Violin Concerto
Mahler: Symphony No. 1

Orchestre de Paris
Paavo Järvi, conductor
Frank Peter Zimmermann, violin

Cité de la musique
221, avenue Jean Jaurès
75019 Paris

Play is dedicated to Pina Bausch

Compagnie Eastman
Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, choreography, dance, vocals
Shantala Shivalingappa, choreography, dance, vocals
Arthur Nauzyciel, artistic adviser
Adam Carrée, lighting
Filip Peeters, visual concept and marionnettes
Paul Van Caudenberg, video
Patrizia Bovi, vocals, harp
Gabriele Miracle, percussions, dulcimer
Olga Wojciechowska, violin
Tsubasa Hori, percussion

Cité de la musique
221, avenue Jean Jaurès
75019 Paris

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

Gabriel Fauré:  Pénélope

Opera in three acts (1913)
Libretto: René Fauchois, afte The 'Odyssey' by Homer

Fayçal Karoui, conductor
 
Anna Caterina Antonacci:  Pénélope
Roberto Alagna: Ulysse
Vincent Le Texier: Eumée
Edwin Crossley-Mercer: Eurymaque
Marina de Liso: Euryclée
Julien Behr: Antinoüs
Sophie Pondjiclis: Cléone
Jérémy Duffau: Léodès
Khatouna Gadelia: Mélantho
Marc Labonette: Ctésippe

Orchestre Lamoureux
Chœur Lamoureux
Patrick Marco, conductor

320 spectacles de théâtre, musique et danse. Une programmation théâtrale professionnelle exigeante (80% de créations), ancrée sur le répertoire traditionnel, revisité par l’esprit de la Commedia, le théâtre de rue des origines et l’écriture contemporaine ... Le Mois Molière 2013 confirme son identité de laboratoire de création artistique et fer de lance du théâtre populaire de qualité. 

Plus de 20 créations en avant-scène du "Off" d’Avignon :

• Monsieur de Pourceaugnac, de Molière, par Jean Hervé Apperé et la compagnie Burlesques associés ; 
  
• Les Jumeaux Vénitiens, de Carlo Goldoni, par Anthony Magnier et la compagnie Viva la Commedia ; 
  
• Alice au potager des merveilles, fantaisie de Stéphanie Tesson d’après Lewis Caroll, avec la troupe Phénomène et Compagnie;
  
• L’Histoire de France du Bouffon, texte et mise en scène d’Antoine Séguin, avec l’Accompagnie ; 
  
• Antigone, de Sophocle, mise en scène de Gwenhaël de Gouvello , avec la Compagnie du Catogan ; 
  
• Les Irrévérencieux, texte et mise en scène de Lucca Franceschi, avec le Théâtre des Asphodèles ; 
  
• Les Précieuses ridicules, de Molière, mise en scène de Nicolas Rigas, avec le Théâtre du Petit Monde ; 
  
• La Dame au petit chien, de Tchekov, lecture de Muriel Mayette de la Comédie française ; 
  
• Le Nôtre et ses jardins, lecture d’Eric Orsenna de l’Académie française ; 
  
• Mademoiselle Molière, d’après Molière, par Hubert Fielden et la compagnie La Dérive (Québec) ; 
  
• Cycle de Commedia dell’arte : 8 créations de Carlo Boso et Danuta Zarazik pour l’Académie internationale des Arts du spectacle;
  
• Cycle Jean Giraudoux, par le Théâtre du Nord-Ouest, sous la direction de Jean-Luc Jeener ; 
  
• Les Confessions, de Saint-Augustin, lecture baroque de Charles Di Meglio, de la compagnie Oghma ;
  

Cycle Nouveau cirque, dirigé par la Compagnie Méli-Mélo

Kouyaté / Rykiel (France, Guinée)
Oumou Sangaré (Mali)

Oumou Sangare is not just the possessor of one of Mali’s greatest female voices; she is a taboo-busting protest singer who applies her huge musical gifts to defying tradition in matters of polygamy and women’s rights and roles. She calls herself Sangare kono – ‘Sangare the songbird’ - a term which in Mali is the special privilege of musicians who come from the southern region known as Wasulu, and who use music to comment on life as it is really lived. Born in Bamako, she sold 200,000 cassettes of her first release at just 21 years old and more recently has duetted with stars such as Alicia Keys, Me'Shell Ndégéocello, and Pink Floyd guitarist Dave Gilmour.

Mory Djely Kouyaté : vocals
Jean-Philippe Rykiel : piano
Oumou Sangaré : vocals
Alioune Wade : bass
Brehima Diakite : kamele n'goni
Hervé Sambe : electric guitar
Cheick Oumar Diabate : djembe
Dandio Sidibe : singer
Sonny Troupé : drum kit

The exhibition, conceived as an echo of the 50th anniversary of the Élysée Treaty, brings together as many French illustrators as German ones. Thus the German satirical reviews Kladderadatasch, Pardon, Simplicissimus and Titanic find their French counterparts in La Baïonnette, La Caricature, Le Charivari, Charlie-Hebdo and Hara-Kiri. Among other artists irrespective of period, Antonelli, Arnold, Bosc, Braunagel, Cabrol, Cabu, Daumier, Effel, Flora, Forain, Gulbransson, Hanel, Hanitzsch, Hansi, Heartfield, Hermann-Paul, Hoppmann, Kroll, Léandre, Moisan, Plantu, Robida, Sauer, Sennep, Siné, Waechter, Willem, Zislin have all clashed pencils in the worlds of publishing, posters and press on either side of the Rhine, giving a caustic, sometimes cruel vision of the topic. The Alsatian Tomi Ungerer occupies a special place among them and his is a corrosive, no-holds-barred view of the topic, contrasting with that of his predecessors.

The display of around 150 works, including original drawings, reviews and books, aims to highlight different techniques used in satirical drawing and illustrates the symbolic iconography of the two countries and key moments in Franco-German relations. Scathing humour rounds off the display with a gallery of caricatures including all the French presidents and German chancellors and specially conceived for the exhibition by the illustrator Frank Hoppmann.