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Atelier Boba : Photo Prints ´sur mesure´

Image: Ryan Boatright in Atelier Boba

Text: Philip Tonda

The new Paris-based photo studio Atelier Boba does not only offer printing and technical advice on a high, professional level; they are also, unlike most printing places, very competent in giving artistic advise on your art project and photo work.

Owner Ryan Boatright, an artist himself, has long worked intensely with photography in various ways. When moving to Paris two years ago, he knew exactly how to proceed. He and his wife the conservator Caroline Barcella, found an old shop in Montmartre, renovated it, and gave birth to Atelier Boba. Since it's conception in 2010 they've put all their effort into making this a well-functioning, professional printing studio, working closely with artists, photographers and other people interested in photography. 

Who comes to Atelier Boba? 
It varies. We have recently worked on print projects for a contemporary artist, commercial photographer, and a documentary photographer. We've also had people coming to receive feedback and critique on their photo work, and some just come to talk about art over a coffee. Furthermore we're currently engaged in a scanning project for an individual who has a large collection of glass plate negatives that he wants digitized so he can share the images with his family on the Internet.

Mia Funk: Meta Art

Nuavecabacus 2012 © Mia Funk, acrylic, gouache, antique wallpaper

Images: Mia Funk                                        
Text:  Susie Kahlich 

Talking to the artist Mia Funk is a slightly unsettling experience, like being surprised by fizz in a drink you thought was flat.  It’s a bit of a shock at first, but then you realize it’s a pleasant shock and yes, you will have another glass of that, please.

And that’s how it is with Ms. Funk. Very direct and extremely articulate, she throws you right off balance the second she starts speaking, but leaves you wanting more.  An Irish-German Chinese-American, she physically resembles the Chinese side of her family but, although born and raised in Seattle, her 10 years in Ireland and over a decade in France has inflected her American vocabulary with a hybrid accent that comes across as vaguely German. 

And for all her intensity and intelligent observations about art, history, film, pop culture and literature, there exists an underlying social satire that is dark and deliciously addictive yet playful, like a soda designed by Edward Gorey: exotic and mysterious, probably poisonous, but delightful nonetheless.  In other words, an unexpected fizzy drink.

35 Parisian New Year's Resolutions

Image: I Still Shoot Film

Text: Guillermo Martinez de Velasco

1-Don't go to the Eiffel Tower on New Year's Eve

2-Actually do that thing where I pick an area of the Louvre per week, and visit it very attentively

3-Buy a bicycle and throw away my carte imagineR

4-Actually go to Château de Vincennes, not just talk about going

5-Promise to go to one of the presentations/lectures/workshops at Beaubourg or the Fondation Cartier per month

6-Don't cheap out on French Vogue or Egoïste

7-Finally get my membership for the Hôtel-de-Ville Library and The Bibliothèque Fornier / Go study in these libraries

8-Get photographed by The Sartorialist, at least

9-Volunteer at Shakespeare and Co. (But also check out the Abbey Bookstore)

10- Promise to learn more about wines, it's embarrassing that you always go for the 4-5 euro Bordeaux

Festival de Cinéma Européen

Image:  Festival de Cinéma Européen des Arcs
Text:  Susie Kahlich

“Something is wrong with this picture,” says Pierre-Emmanuel Fleurantin.  “There are excellent films being made across Europe right now, but only Hollywood films dominate what’s released in theatres.”

Fleurantin is the Director General and CEO of the Festival de Cinéma Européen des Arcs (10-17 December).  Hailed by The Hollywood Reporter and Variety as “the Sundance of Europe,” the alpine festival is only in the third year of its mission to topple the mighty Hollywood.

Paradoxically, Fleurantin talks fast and slick like a Hollywood dealmaker, but he sports the quintessential French uniform: velvet jacket, jeans and mild bemusement that the world would prefer bigger-louder-faster rather than restrained, refined and slow.  Fleurantin throws numbers and percentages at me in such rapid big-loud-fast succession I suspect he’s pulled this part of his speech out every year since the festival’s beginning.  Notably, Fleurantin stresses that European cinema represents only 3.2% of movie theatre entries in France (excluding British film), while American film accounts for almost 50%.

20 Questions with Sylvia Whitman

Sylvia Whitman is the proprietor of book shop Shakespeare & Co.

1. What initially inspired you to move here or visit? 

My Father George Whitman.

2. Earliest Paris memory?

Standing on a street grid and having hot metro air blow up my dress.

3. Best neighbourhood you've ever lived in?

I want to do what the French writer Colette did which is to move every year and try each arrondissement (except maybe I’ll skip the 16th). For now, it would be where I currently live : Etienne Marcel. From my front door, take a left and you get to watch all the fashionistas doing a catwalk on the rue Montorgeuil, take a right and peek into the sex shops on rue St Denis. I like that combination.

4. What's the best meal you've eaten in Paris?

It would have to be that amazing white night meal – it happens every year in a secret location. When I went it was on Place de la Concorde. 8 000 people eating a white meal in white on the Place, it was one of the most civilised, magical meals – I think about it every time I pass Concorde.

5. Sexiest moment you've had in Paris?

A more than romantic kiss in a church kissing someone I shouldn’t.

Minuit à Musée d'Orsay ~ The American Friends Gala

Photo: Anastasia Nielsen

Text: Natalie Turturro

At 7 pm sharp on Saturday November twelfth, a group of prompt and elegant patrons stood outside Musée d’Orsay.  Flicking cigarettes and talking gaily in tight circles, they waited for their exclusive entrance inside the museum to mark the launch of the American Friends of Musee d’Orsay (AFMO). 

Cork popping and hors d’oeuvres noshing (pinky out!) was to last until midnight.  I stood alone, hoping that my borrowed Chanel heels wouldn’t turn into soppy pumpkin on the twelfth stroke by those two massive clocks. 

The gala was sold out: 300 well-to-do members of the Franco-American community had come to see what museum president Guy Cogeval dubbed “the crème de la crème of our collection.”  An aura of sophistication danced around the ground floor statues in silver stilettos and polka dotted bow ties.  The night was ripe with celebration to foster American and French artistic relations. 

Get Comfy in the Maison of Photography

Image: Edu Simões

Text: Kristen Cammack

When you need to get out of the bitter cold this winter, I suggest getting cozy in the Maison Européenne de la photographie.

Open late until 8pm Wednesday though Sunday, it’s a great Museum to visit before grabbing drinks with friends. You can impress them by chatting about the current exhibitions covering subjects from the Afro-Brazilian religion of Candomblé to early photography in Albania.

The MEP has always had a penchant for Brazilian photographers, and it continues to take visitors deeper into the culture. In 1951, José Medeiros offended the believers of Candomblé by dissecting into their sacred secrets and exposing their unique rituals. Edu Simões shows how a simple lunchbox can define the very person you are.

And right after admiring delicious warm meals of construction workers, Fernanda Magalhães sends you on an adventure for the ideal body of a woman. Using nude photos of obese women, their boobs, their legs, their fesses. 

L'Hôtel Particulier: Une Ambition Parisienne

Image: Gaumont
Text: Hannah O'Brien

Hôtels particuliers have been glorified by French literature, bringing us the haunting image of the luxury and beauty of Parisian life. The wonderful L’Hôtel Particulier: Une Ambition Parisienne exhibition at Cité de l'architecture et du patrimoine invites us to step into the private realm of these hotels. Through a combination of stunning paintings, busts of the original occupants, re-models, striking murals, interactive touch-screen guides and a detailed documentary, visitors are invited to learn about the origins and historical importance of these impressive buildings.

As someone who was sceptical as to whether they would enjoy such as an exhibition, I cannot avoid declaring my delight at what I saw. This exhibition contains the rare balance between written fact and visual information. Each section offers new treats and secrets to be uncovered. It is filled with a sufficient amount of priceless paintings and quaint artifacts to make even the lowliest of historians squeal with delight. This exhibition doesn’t just give us examples of wonderful art and architecture, but it allows us to envisage the society, the people and above all the splendour of a Paris long lost, but whose traces are indelibly etched on the fabric of this great city.

In other words I had become so intoxicated by the grandeur and mystique of this lifestyle that I had forgotten about the people of the hôtel particulier.

The War of Law and Words

Image: Bibliothèque publique d'information

Text: Emily Ruck Keene

Of all of the reasons for which France is known, it is her vibrant contribution to the world of literature that has given her the title of one of the most culturally relevant cities in the world. The French are passionately proud of their nation's active role in cultural history and it seems more pertinent than ever, with the exploding presence of media giving us the ability to learn about history and current events, to take a look back at the crucial moments that have marked the path that literature in this country has taken.

The Pompidou Centre is currently holding an exhibition on the relationship between the editor and the law in France from 1945 onwards. Whilst there are plenty of important events that took place before, this date seems a natural choice: with the end of German occupation, fresh dialogue was able to emerge within the disciplines of economics, politics and ethics amongst others. It is these fields to which the exhibition Editeurs, les lois du métier hopes to opens the floor in an era within which freedom of expression has never been such an international question.

Despite France’s post-war liberation, freedom of the press saw itself threatened by a law in 1949 intended to protect young readers from supposedly dangerous publications. The role and responsibility of the editor as well as the writer was brought into the spotlight as they fought with and against censorship. The exhibition contains examples of legal cases involving the State and publishing houses, often resolved internally due to the importance of reputation for any editor.

Women Who Changed India at the Petit Palais

Image: Petit Palais.

Text: Rooksana Hossenally.

The much-awaited exhibition showing some of India’s most high-profile women has reached its final stop in Paris after touring India, Milan, London and Brussels. The collaboration between Reporters sans Frontières and the BNP (Banque Nationale de Paris), the photography agency, Magnum Photos, and the Delhi-based publishers, Zubaan, is a celebration of BNP’s 150-year presence in India.

The exhibition is the second Reporters Sans Frontières project at the Petit Palais after 'Pierre et Alexandra Boulat' last year. Following the success of ‘Paris-Bombay’ at the Centre Pompidou earlier on this year, ‘Women Who Changed India’ is proving to be equally as successful with queues stretching for a mile or so outside the venue. Everyone is rushing to see the six photographers’ works showing how women have become more active in the changing face of India, a country where women have always been, to borrow Simone de Beauvoir’s terminology, the ‘second sex’.

Magnum photographers, Martine Franck, Alex Webb, Patrick Zachmann, Alessandra Sanguinetti, Olivia Arthur and Raghu Rai, seek to underline the cultural and geographic diversity of women in India by showing women in their evolving roles; be it as taxi drivers, lawyers, politicians or film directors. Needless to say that the colourful prints hanging in the Petit Palais’ basement gallery are pleasing to the eye, but one must wonder what this exhibition really means in terms of equality of the sexes: is it necessary to underline the difference between genders in order to encourage equality?