We Recommend
Cézanne at the Whitworth
Sat 24 Aug - Sun 1 Mar
The Witworth
This exhibition celebrates an extraordinary collection of drawings and prints by Paul Cézanne that has been gifted and placed on long-term loan to the Whitworth by gallerist, collector, author and publisher Karsten Schubert.
Visual Arts
Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2019
Sat 14 Sept - Sun 23 Feb
Various Venues
Since 1949, BNC has consistently supported contemporary visual artists to successfully transition from education into professional practice, by means of an annual touring exhibition, featuring French artist Camille Yvert. Supported by Fluxus Art Projects.
Visual Arts
French Politics: A Neighbour’s History of the Present
Thu 26 Sept - Tue 30 Jun
University of Westminster
This series of seminars is designed with the Foucauldian notion of “history of the present” in mind and will tackle some of the most pressing challenges of French politics and political theory today.
Talks
TV5MONDE
Mon 30 - Wed 30 Sept
For the love of culture, in French
Anyone in the UK can now enjoy TV5MONDE streamed live 24/7 in HD. From prime time films, hit drama series premieres, documentaries, travel, cuisine and kids programmes and news throughout the day, just click and watch for free.
Films & TV
The Credit Suisse Exhibition: Gauguin Portraits
Mon 7 Oct - Sun 26 Jan
The National Gallery
The first ever exhibition devoted to the portraits of Paul Gauguin. Spanning the later years of his life and focusing solely on his portraits, this exhibition follows Gauguin’s move away from Impressionism towards Symbolism.
Visual Arts
L’Histoire des relations de l’Angleterre avec l’Europe
Wed 16 Oct - Mon 20 Apr
Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle
En menant l’inventaire des relations des Britanniques avec le continent Européen de l’Antiquité à nos jours, ce cycle de conférences assurées par d'éminents universitaires vous invite à mieux comprendre la période actuelle !
Talks
Artificialis
Sat 2 Nov - Sat 2 May
Saatchi Gallery
French artist Cyril de Commarque presents a multi-media installation drawing from the Anthropocene era – the period when man first had an impact on Earth’s geology and ecosystems – then meditating on the effect technology and scientific advancement will have on humankind and the environment.
Visual Arts
Dora Maar
Wed 20 Nov - Sun 15 Mar
Tate Modern
The largest retrospective of Dora Maar ever held in the UK. During the 1930s, Maar’s provocative photomontages became celebrated icons of surrealism. This exhibition will explore the breadth of Maar's long career in the context of work by her contemporaries.
Visual Arts
Cars Accelerating the Modern World
Sat 23 Nov - Sun 19 Apr
Victoria and Albert Museum
Over its short 130-year history, the car has become one of the most loved, contested and influential innovations in the world. It has revolutionised manufacturing, transformed how we move, forever changing our cities, environment and economies.
Visual Arts
La traviata
Tue 17 Dec - Mon 23 Mar
Royal Opera House
Richard Eyre's naturalistic production of Verdi's traviata contrasts the superficial glamour of 19th-century Parisian high life with intimate scenes for the main characters.
Classical Music
London International Mime Festival
Wed 8 Jan - Sun 2 Feb
Various Venues in London
The London International Mime Festival returns to venues across the capital with 18 of the best international contemporary visual theatre companies, featuring UK premieres from 3 French companies and a special visit by the famous Jacques Lecoq School.
Performing Arts
Julie Béna : The Jester and the Death
Fri 10 Jan - Sat 15 Feb
Kunstraum, London
Kunstraum has commissioned a new body of work titled The Jester & Death. Béna’s practice constitutes an eclectic set of references, combining contemporary and ancient literature, high and low art, joking, and seriousness, parallel times and spaces.
Visual Arts
The Living Days by Ananda Devi
Fri 10 Jan - Thu 13 Feb
Les Fugitives
A chance encounter on Portobello Road incites an unsettling, magnetic attraction between Mary, an elderly spinster, and Cub, a boy from Brixton, driving her crumbling world into heightened delusion.
Books
Christine Rebet Solo Exhibition
Tue 21 Jan - Sat 4 Apr
Parasol Unit, London
Parasol unit foundation for contemporary art presents a solo exhibition of the work of French artist Christine Rebet, exploring trauma, illusion, revolt and the destruction of our shared history and environment through six diverse, hand-drawn animated films.
Films & TV, Visual Arts
Picasso and Paper
Sat 25 Jan - Mon 13 Apr
Royal Academy of Arts
Pablo Picasso rewrote the rules of painting, but he also tore up the rulebook for paper. Bringing together 300 of the artist’s works, both on and with paper, this exhibition spans his entire prolific career and represents a significant chapter in modern art.
Visual Arts
Lettres jamais écrites – Unwritten Letters by Estelle Savasta
Sun 26 Jan
The Cockpit Theatre
"Write the one letter that you've never written". This was the instruction given to Year 11 pupils in France. Each one of these letters was then answered by a writer. The result is a rich tapestry of voices and experiences which explore the world of today.
Performing Arts
Orchestre National de Lille – UK Tour
Tue 28 Jan - Sat 1 Feb
Various Venues in the UK
Under the inspirational conductor Alexandre Bloch, the Orchestre National de Lille performs in 5 cities for the biggest UK tour of a French orchestra in 2020, featuring the 1st prize of the 2018 Leeds International Piano Competition, pianist Eric Lu.
Classical Music
Orchestre National de Lille – French Landscapes
Wed 29 Jan
Cadogan Hall
The Orchestre National de Lille, conducted by Alexandre Bloch, promises to shine in this programme of evocative melodies from the very best of the French composers: Ravel and Debussy. American pianist Eric Lu will also perform Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4.
Classical Music
London International Mime Festival – Optraken by Galactik Ensemble
Wed 29 Jan - Sat 1 Feb
Sadler's Wells
Five daredevil acrobats, all graduates of the famous circus school at Rosny sous Bois, try to survive a set that seems to be going out of its way to hurt them. Firecrackers explode, sandbags drop from the flies, walls shift and move and nothing stays still.
Performing Arts
Europeans: Dora Maar
Wed 29 Jan
Rich Mix, London
Join Dash Arts in their 100th café, as they delve into the world of French photographer, painter and poet Dora Maar. An icon of Surrealism, Maar is best known for her photography and photomontages depicting post-war anxieties and internal horrors of the mind.
Talks, Visual Arts
French Politics; A Neighbour’s History of the Present
Thu 30 Jan - Thu 13 Feb
University of Westminster
The seminar focuses on topical works of contemporary French social scientists. Silyane Larcher (CNRS) will speak in January on Afrofeminism and the French universalism, and Sébastien Chauvin (University of Lausanne) on LGBTQI struggles in France in February.
Talks
Elsa Dreisig & Jonathan Ware
Sun 2 Feb
Wigmore Hall
Multi-award-winning Franco-Danish soprano Elsa Dreisig explores works by Duparc, Strauss and Rachmaninov in tandem with pianist Jonathan Ware.
Classical Music
Benoît Peeters, The Obscure Cities – Between Utopia and Dystopia
Mon 3 Feb
Institut français d’Ecosse
Benoît Peeters will be giving a talk on his famous comics Les Cités Obscures at the Institut français d’Ecosse, as part of DELC Research Seminar Series of the University of Edinburgh, School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures.
Talks, Visual Arts
Valentine in Paris
Fri 14 Feb
Southbank Centre
For Valentine's Day, French pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet and the London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Emmanuel Krivine, will stop by Humperdinck’s enchanted German forest to access masterpieces of the French repertoire such as Ravel's Piano Concerto.
Classical Music
Cédric Tiberghien
Sun 23 Feb
Wigmore Hall
Cédric Tiberghien will intersperse some of the Beethoven's Variations written between 1782 and 1803 with works by 20th-century American experimentalists such as John Cage.
Classical Music
Christian Louboutin
Tue 25 Feb - Tue 28 Jul
Palais de la Porte Dorée
Thought as an invitation to dive into the prolific universe of Christian Louboutin, the exhibition explores all the aspects of his multiple referenced inspirations, in a place dear to the creator and which has seen his vocation grow.
Visual Arts
Jean Féline and Joshua J. Leon: Habitat
Sun 1 Mar - Thu 30 Apr
Platform Southwark, London
Artists Joshua Leon and Jean Feline, tackle the subject and concept of Habitat, intending to investigate the social issues relating to the home in contemporary culture, treating the domestic as an unsafe ground and navigating the meaning of “making a home".
Visual Arts
Camille Yvert: How I Naturally Improve
Sun 1 Mar - Thu 30 Apr
Gibberd Gallery
New and developing work by Camille Yvert taking its starting point from the relationship between bronzage culture & bronze sculpture and examining the quest for body optimisation and the motorcycle industry will be presented at the Harlow Art Trust.
Visual Arts
Anne Gillis & XT Duo: a new collaborative work
Sun 1 Mar - Sun 31 May
Café Oto, London
Bringing together three explicitly ‘radical’ artists of different generations in a unique Anglo-French collaboration featuring Anne Gillis and composers XT, the show operates at the boundaries of sound-making/music, visual arts and performance.
Contemporary Music, Performing Arts, Visual Arts
The Oboist Entertains: Leleux Interprets Mozart
Mon 2 Mar
Southbank Centre
Oboist extraordinaire, François Leleux explores Austria, Poland and Italy with three pieces by three great composers (including Mozart) with the English Chamber Orchestra.
Classical Music
Lise Berthaud & David Saudubray
Mon 2 Mar
Wigmore Hall
With her pianist partner David Saudubray, widely admired French viola player Lise Berthaud will perform two major pieces by Schubert and Brahms, originally written for other instruments.
Classical Music
Eva Jospin: Among the Trees
Wed 4 Mar - Sun 17 May
Hayward Gallery - Southbank Centre
Among the Trees brings together artworks, including Eva Jospin’s Forests, that explore our relationship to trees. The exhibition focuses on artworks that re-imagine traditional genres and develop trees representations to shift our conventional perceptions.
Visual Arts
Stéphane Degout & Simon Lepper
Sun 8 Mar
Wigmore Hall
One of the world’s leading baritones Stéphane Degout returns to Wigmore Hall with pianist Simon Lepper, taking part to the song recital series.
Classical Music
Pierre-Laurent Aimard: Beethoven & Ives
Tue 10 Mar
Southbank Centre
Beethoven was a humanist and musical revolutionary, Charles Ives became known as a radical modernist of his day. Pierre-Laurent Aimard gives voice to the two great composers, revealing Beethoven’s influence on the avant-garde.
Classical Music
Modern Art and the French Riviera
Sat 14 - Sun 15 Mar
Royal Academy of Arts
This weekend-long art history course by the leading authority on French modernism, Dr Nicholas Watkins, explores the many modern artists who lived and worked along the French coast in the first half of the twentieth century.
Visual Arts
Harpsichord en fête
Fri 20 - Fri 27 Mar
Institut français d'Ecosse & St Cecilia's Hall, Edinburgh
For its Harpsichord en fête festival's 2nd edition, the Institut français d'Ecosse invited the artists to select and perform on historical harpsichords from St Cecilia's Hall. The festival will also celebrate historical dances with a Baroque ball.
Classical Music
Anna Zoria’s Residency at Maison Touchard
Sat 21 Mar - Sat 25 Apr
Maison Touchard, London
Maison Touchard presents Anna Zoria’s first exhibition in the United Kingdom. Building on themes of interiority and infra-ordinary, it collapses the site of production & exhibition into one porous setting responding to the domestic context of Maison Touchard.
Visual Arts
Lise de la Salle: Liszt, Debussy & Beethoven
Tue 31 Mar
Southbank Centre
Lise de la Salle returns to the Wigmore Hall on the occasion of the International Piano Series, which present the most prestigious pianists on the concert platform and showcases the grand masters alongside the best of a current generation of rising stars.
Classical Music
The Swap Project : Elodie Merland and Bachir Boussandel
Wed 1 Apr - Tue 30 Jun
River Garage, Kent
River Garage invites in a three-week residency French artists Elodie Merland and Bachir Boussandel, living in Northern France and whose work is linked to notions of borders, languages and spaces through sculpture, performance, installation and photography.
Performing Arts, Visual Arts
Le Concert d’Astrée
Tue 14 Apr
Wigmore Hall
Under Emmanuelle Haïm’s direction, Baroque specialist group Le Concert d'Astrée brings a rich selection of pieces from the 16th and 17th Centuries to the Wigmore Hall.
Classical Music
1920s Paris, The Crazy Years: Pulcinella & Paris
Tue 28 Apr
Southbank Centre
In their Worlds Colliding series, City of London Sinfonia explore the blurred lines between classical and popular culture. With conductor and pianist David Greilsammer, they will give voice to 20th Century French composers.
Classical Music
Les Talens Lyriques
Fri 8 May
Wigmore Hall
Harpsichordist Christophe Rousset’s Baroque ensemble welcomes German tenor Julian Prégardien for a programme of love songs by some of the leading lights of the French Baroque period.
Classical Music
Varèse & Debussy: Dreamscapes
Sat 9 May
Southbank Centre
Young conductor Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra dedicate their programme to Varèse and Debussy, who share a preoccupation with the texture, physicality and sensuality of sound itself.
Classical Music
Varèse and Debussy: Microcosms
Sun 10 May
Southbank Centre
This time with the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, conductor Mirga Gražinyte-Tyla combines 4 works by Varèse with pieces by Debussy and contemporary composers Rebecca Saunders and Gérard Grisey.
Classical Music
La Serenissima
Tue 12 May
Wigmore Hall
The UK’s leading Venetian-specialist ensemble La Serenissima celebrate Vivaldi's women student-performers in the company of soprano Julia Doyle, mezzo-soprano Renata Pokupić and contralto Hilary Summers.
Classical Music
Jimmy Robert : A Review
Fri 22 May - Mon 31 Aug
Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham
Nottingham Contemporary presents a major survey exhibition by the French artist Jimmy Robert, spanning two decades of practice, as well as the UK premiere and tour of his most ambitious performance to date, Joie Noire (2019).
Performing Arts, Visual Arts
Memory / Hélène Grimaud
Sun 7 Jun
Barbican Centre
Hélène Grimaud matches Schumann's virtuosity with pieces by Satie, Silvestrov, Debussy and Chopin to ‘conjure atmospheres of fragile reflection, a mirage of what was – or what could have been’, as she says.
Classical Music