Displaying items by tag: palace of versailles

On June 7, Anish Kapoor's newest sculptural interventions will be unveiled at the Palace of Versailles.

Kapoor's installation is part of a series of contemporary art exhibitions at Versailles that began in 2008 with a controversial Jeff Koons show, and has since included artists Xavier Veilhan, Takashi Murakami, and Joana Vasconcelos.

The Palace of Fontainebleau, a royal château that served as the residence of French monarchs from Louis VII through Napoleon III, is preparing for a major overhaul. Located just fifty-five kilometers southeast of Paris, the sprawling palace has long been overshadowed by its more famous counterpart, Versailles. France’s Minister of Culture, Fleur Pellerin, is hoping that a €115-million funding boost will change that. Versailles, which embarked on its own €350-million, seventeen-year overhaul in 2003, is the only other royal home in France to have received public funding of a similar caliber.

Announced on Monday, January 26, 2015, the plan to overhaul Fontainebleau includes the long-term conservation of the palace, which was added to UNESCO’s World Heritage list in 1981.

The Louvre, the Palace of Versailles and the Musee d'Orsay -- France's top three most visited museums -- will soon open seven days a week, the government said Wednesday.

The measure is expected to come into force between 2015 and 2017, ending a practice that currently sees those top tourist sites closed one day a week, on Monday or Tuesday.

From the utilitarian mid-17th century cabinets to the playful curves of the Louis XV style and the straight lines of the late 18th century, the upcoming exhibition “The 18th aux sources du design: Furniture masterpieces from 1650-1790” at the Palace of Versailles will offer visitors a crash course on the evolution of early furniture design.

The exhibition aims to showcase the avant-garde nature of some of the techniques and shapes used at the time by presenting the 100 or so items of furniture against a contemporary backdrop rather than the ornate Versailles décor, showcasing each piece as a work of art on its own right.

The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston has installed a recently acquired bronze sculpture by the renowned Italian artist Giuseppe Penone. “Albero Folgorato (Lightning Tree)” (2012), which stands over 36 feet tall, was cast from an oak tree that had been struck by lightning. It will reside on the museum’s verdant South Lawn in the Lillie and Hugh Roy Cullen Sculpture Garden. Created by sculptor Isamu Noguchi, the sculpture garden features masterworks of 20th- and 21st-century sculpture by artists such as Louise Bourgeois, Dan Graham, Henri Matisse, and Auguste Rodin. The garden also includes a variety of plants and trees that were selected by Noguchi with assistance from the Houston-based landscape architect Johnny Steele.

Houston’s “Albero Folgorato” is the third and final version of the monumental bronze sculpture, which had its internationally acclaimed debut at the Palace of Versailles in France in the summer of 2013.