—     Visit

At the invitation of the French Embassy’s Department of Cooperation and Cultural Action, the Minister for Culture, Eric Thill, visited the Cité internationale de la langue française on 18 June in Villers-Cotterêts for an exchange with the management of the Cité and the curator of the exhibition, Barbara Cassin. Eric Thill was received by Paul de Sinety, General Delegate for the French Language and the Languages of France at the Ministry of Culture, and Paul Rondin, Director of the Cité.

In his speech, the Minister for Culture, Eric Thill, was impressed by the Cité’s immersive experience and creative approach: “Today’s visit has reinforced our desire to design a permanent exhibition on the Luxembourg language and Luxembourg’s unique linguistic situation, its history and its future, inviting visitors of all ages to explore our living heritage and appreciate its importance to our society.”

         —     Villers-Cotterêts

The historic château is a symbolic place for the French language, since it was here that François I signed the famous decree in 1539 making it compulsory to use French instead of Latin in administrative and judicial documents. It has been completely renovated at the request of the French President, to make the Cité internationale de la langue française a living showcase for the French language, a place that invites visitors on a journey through the French language and the Francophonie world.

      From 4 July to 21 September 2024, the luca will be hosting a solo exhibition by French architect Jean-Christophe Quinton entitled “The otherness of the rooms and the promise of the forms”.

         —     Exhibition

Each plan is the fruit of a strategy that seeks to create high-quality relationships between the different parts that make it up. The project is born of this rapprochement between the component, seen as an irreducible primary entity, and the plan, conceived with the desire to guarantee the quality of their association.

This exhibition is an opportunity to share twenty years of architectural practice through a project culture driven by the notion of the piece. With drawing as a resource for seeing, designing and showing, models of all scales for a sensitive immersion and the book for a different temporality, the visitor is invited to explore the multiplicity of emotions aroused by the architectural experience and to share the pleasure of looking at the world of the project through that of the rooms.

This exhibition is organised by the luca – Luxembourg centre for architecture, with the support of Institut français du Luxembourg and the Association Victor Hugo.

         —     Jean-Christophe Quinton

Jean-Christophe Quinton, born in 1972, graduated from Ecole Paris-Belleville in 2000. He set up his own practice in 2003. In 2004, he won the Nouveaux Albums des Jeunes Architectes prize, and was mentioned in the Chernikov Prize in 2010. He also teaches at various schools of architecture, and since 2015 has been head of the École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Versailles. The monograph of his work Vers l’immédiate étrangeté des formes was awarded the Grand prix du livre d’architecture de la Ville de Briey in 2017. He has been a full member of the Académie d’Architecture since 2019.

      On 4, 5 & 6 July, the Cinémathèque de la Ville de Luxembourg will be screening a selection of feature films from the Semaine de la Critique 2024 selection.

         —     Semaine de la Critique – Cannes

Since 1962, La Semaine de la Critique, a parallel section of the Cannes Film Festival, has been spotlighting young, emerging film talent. This platform, programmed by members of the Syndicat français de la critique de cinéma, offers short films as well as first and second features.

Since its creation, La Semaine has revealed the work of such renowned filmmakers as Chris Marker, Jacques Audiard, Arnaud Desplechin, François Ozon, Bernardo Bertolucci, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Ken Loach, Andrea Arnold and Wong Kar Wai. The Semaine team is now led by critic Ava Cahen (Le Cercle, FrenchMania, Le Masque et la plume…) and continues to support the emerging voices of world cinema who will be the established directors of tomorrow.

         —     At the Cinémathèque

The Cinémathèque de la Ville de Luxembourg is delighted to announce a three-day partial screening of feature films from the Semaine de la Critique’s 2024 Selection, with an introduction to each film by Ava Cahen General Delegate of the Semaine de la Critique Cannes. At the same time, La Semaine and the Cinémathèque are organising daytime workshops for students and film professionals in Luxembourg.

The revival will offer Luxembourg audiences a unique opportunity to discover Cannes gems just a few weeks after their world premiere on the Croisette.

      In partnership with the Bibliothèque nationale du Luxembourg, we offer you a writing master class in French with Luxembourg writer Jean Portante on the theme of time.

         —     About the master class

In principle, every writer and poet is self-taught. This does not mean that writing a poem, like anything else, cannot be learned. It has its techniques which, while never replacing the desire or the need to express oneself, or the imagination, or a possible gift, enable you to enter into the depths of words and the hidden links between them.

The aim of this master class is to create the conditions for the unexpected to emerge in writing. To get inside words to make them say what they don’t want to say. To create an intimate dictionary, specific to each individual, enabling original weavings that will lead to the poetic text. Let’s not forget, by the way, that text and weave mean exactly the same thing, if we go back to the Latin source. Text is a fabric of words.

To weave, you need several threads which, when intertwined, create the fabric/text. This is where the writing techniques drawn from the baggage of the European and global avant-gardes come into play, as the dawn of the twentieth century saw writing make leaps and bounds. The master class will draw on the contributions of Lautréamont, the Dadaism of Tristan Tzara and Hugo Ball, the ready-made of Marcel Duchamp, the Futurism of Marinetti, the Surrealism of Breton and Dalí, the experiments of Kurt Schwitters and John Cage, and the Oulipians who, with Queneau and Pérec, opened up literature to mathematics and its constraints, to playful writing and its astonishing possibilities.

Each participant will be asked to write a number of poems that could be used in a performance-reading, and collected together to ensure that no trace of the experience is lost.

This master class can accommodate a maximum of 15 people. You will receive a confirmation email once your registration has been processed.

         —     About Jean Portante

Jean Portante is a writer, translator, editor, journalist and teacher at the Centre de Langues (now the Institut National des Langues).

Jean Portante was born in Differdange in 1950 to Italian parents. He has lived in Paris since 1983. His work, comprising some forty books – poetry, novels, essays and plays – is widely translated. In France, he is a member of the Académie Mallarmé; in Luxembourg, he is a member of the Institut Grand-Ducal. In 2003, he was awarded the Prix Mallarmé in France for his book L’Étrange langue. In 2011, he was awarded the Prix Batty Weber in Luxembourg for his body of work. His books are published mainly by Castor Astral (France) and Phi (Luxembourg), but also in some twenty other countries. He has been working as a literary translator for over thirty years.

      Explore the exhibition of photographs by Michel Medinger, winner of the Luxembourg Photography Award 2024. Two photographic series are showcased at Merl Park, providing a capivating glimpse into his artistic prowess.

         —     About the exhibition

At Merl Park, visitors can enjoy two of his photographic series: “Petrol Pumps” and “Sports Objects”, the latter reflecting Michel Medinger’s lifelong passion for sports; in his youth, he took part in the track and field competition at the Tokyo Olympic Games in 1964. This series is very topical in light of this summer’s Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris.

Petrol Pumps

Abandoned petrol pumps, photographed in the 1980s and 1990s, are the focus of this photo series by Michel Medinger. Although these old petrol pumps are gradually disappearing, they can still occasionally be found in villages across Luxembourg and the Greater Region. Despite their outdated appearance, they blend into modern environments. With his keen eye, Michel Medinger captures this contrast in a way that feels harmonious, evoking a sense of nostalgia in viewers.

Sports Objects

The “Sports Objects” series, which comprises more recent work from the 2010s, showcases Michel Medinger’s dual passion for sports and photography. He emphasises the sculptural nature of the sports objects through strategic lighting, revealing their traces of wear and tear, and pinpointing the stories they hold. Many items he photographed belonged to professional athletes, such as Charly Gaul’s saddle and Josy Barthel’s track spikes. Just like in his series “Having fun” (“S’amuser”), these pieces show how much the artist enjoys playing with compositions and humanising the objects of his daily life, while at the same time making allusions to art history.

A second exhibition by Michel Medinger will be on show at the same time in the gardens of the Hospice Civil de Hamm in Luxembourg City.

         —     About Michel Medinger

Michel Medinger, the Luxembourg photographer, was born in Neudorf (Luxembourg City) in 1941. He is celebrated for his many photographic series, particularly his black and white still life series. As a self-taught photographer and avid collector of objects, he has experimented with a variety of photographic techniques, including black and white photography, cibachrome, and polaroids. By combining these techniques with his passion for painting – which was the first art form he fell in love with – Michel Medinger has developed a unique style of staging objects from his collection in the form of still lives, reminiscent of the curiosity cabinets from the 16th century.

The artist infuses his works with a subtle sense of humour; tackling themes such as the ephemeral, vanity, human fragility, and eroticism. He draws inspiration from the iconography of 17th-century Dutch Golden Age paintings, notably by Rembrandt van Rijn and Frans Hals.

Michel Medinger has exhibited his photographs all over the world, from Luxembourg, France, Denmark, Poland, and the United States to Japan and China.

From 1 July to 29 September 2024, a major exhibition dedicated to his oeuvre and curated by Sylvie Meunier is being put on by Lët’z Arles at the Chapelle de la Charité, as part of the famous “Rencontres de la photographie d’Arles” festival. A new book is being published to mark this occasion.

      Find out more about the 70th anniversary cultural events in this year of celebrations.

         —     The Cultural Agreement

On 8 February 1954, the Cultural Agreement between the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and the French Republic was signed. This has led to a considerable development of cultural relations between Luxembourg and France, and has given rise to fruitful cooperation between the two countries’ cultural institutions in all areas (performing arts, art, audiovisual, heritage, etc.).

The signing of this agreement was commemorated at a reception held at the Residence of France, at the invitation of Claire Lignières-Counathe, the French Ambassador to Luxembourg, and in the presence of the Minister for Culture, Eric Thill.

         —     Cultural events calendar

This 70th anniversary is an opportunity to further strengthen the links between the two countries by promoting new forms of cooperation, focusing on young artists and creators, consolidating the very close cross-border relations and labelling a series of cultural events throughout 2024.