France - wine - vintage 2009

2009-10-06 06:54 TU

Naked volunteers pose for US photographer Spencer Tunick in a vineyard of Pouilly-Fuisse in Burgundy for a Greenpeace campaign highlighting climate change(Photo: Reuters)

Focus on...

France - Nuit Blanche

French artist Hugues Reip's installation White Night Spirit, at the Luxembourg Gardens(Photo: Amanda Morrow)

Culture dash as Paris stays up late

Paris was Sunday running at half pace after a sleepless night posing as an open-air art gallery. Thousands took to the streets, parks and even churches from dusk 'till dawn for the eighth Nuit Blanche to marvel at installation light shows, performance art and music displays.

2009-10-06 06:46 TU

Report: Nuit Blanche arts festival, Paris

59 Rivoli inauguration poster, showing how the squat was before(c) Gaspard Delanoe

The squatters’ return

A building on central Paris's rue de Rivoli was occupied by artists from 2000 to 2007. Now the City of Paris, after buying the building, has reopened it as artists' studios and workspaces, open to the public.

2009-09-29 11:51 TU

Culture in France: 59 Rivoli

Socrates drinks hemlock after being condemned for corrupting the youth - poison is not on the menu at the Philosophy cafés(Painting: Jacques-Louis David/Princeton University Art Museum)

Café, croissant ... and the meaning of life?

You might go to the local café for coffee and, if you're feeling self-indulgent, a croissant. But what about a debate on intellectural honesty or whether we humans are out own worst enemies? Welcome to the philosophy cafés.

2009-09-10 13:11 TU

Culture in France: The Philosopher in the café

Exhibitions on now

Gold-leafed Korans, gems, carpets and calligraphy in historic Paris show

Paris's Institut du Monde Arabe (IMA) hosts one of the most impressive collections of Islamic art ever assembled, the Khalili Collection, on show for the first time in Europe.

2009-10-17 11:12 TU

Beauty and death in a secret society

Take a trip back in time - a total of 2009 years - through the Avenue of the Dead to the Quai Branly museum in Paris to find a secretive society, whose gods required human blood and whose craftsmen produced stunning works of art - the Teotihuacan people.

2009-10-12 13:38 TU

Culture in France: Teotihuacan, the place where gods are born

Tiffany's magic shines on

Table lamps, vases, ceramics and drawings show the decorative flair of Louis Comfort Tiffany in an exhibition of the American designer's stained-glass creations in Paris, taking visitors back to the glory days of Art Nouveau design.

2009-10-05 14:43 TU

Culture in France: Tiffany exhibition

France's boom years made concrete... and cable

Europe was booming in the 30 years that followed WWII and that meant it was building, too. Concrete, cable and glass were the favoured materials and one French architect adopted them with evangelistic fervour. Paris's architecture museum presents a lookback at the work of Guillaume Gillet.

2009-09-29 13:33 TU

Culture in France: Guillaume Gilet, architect of the boom years

To do in Paris