L’Alternatif, a new Art center in La Défense area
8 min read
Take a pause in L’Alternatif, in the heart of Paris-La Défense business quarter, close to the famous CNIT, a new spacious forum & co-working place dedicated to culture and entertainment and to host corporate events, like a private show of the DJ Yuksek! It was born from the meeting of 3 actors: Paris La Défense, Establishment in charge of the management, of animation and promotion of the area, Culture Et Patrimoine, a specialized company in the valuation of exceptional assets and Indigo, operator of La Défense car parking.
Composed of a high-tech event room (photo credits: Alex Plato).
The space of 1600 m2 allows you to interact, relax with yoga classes and regenerate with conferences and a Cocktail Bar.
Lately, from February 15th to April 25th 2018, the gallery, in association with The French Art Dealeuses collective, featuring Audrey Hatchikian, hosted the 4th metamorphosis of L’Alternatif, through the doors opening of the highly anticipated “Appartement D’un Collectionneur” exhibition. In this dream apartment, design and contemporary Art lived together in a natural harmony. From the living room to the office through the boudoir and the dining room, the walls were figurative with works by Gérard Schlosser, Robert Combas, Arman, Jacques Monory, Bernard Rancillac, Gérard Fromanger, Ivan Messac… And this space vibrates with the wealth of creations signed by designers such as Hans Von Klier, Verner Panton, Florence Knoll, Joseph-Andre Motte, Philippe Starck… “The apartment of a collector” staged more than 40 works.
If you don’t know what to do next week after your full day in La Défense office, come have a macaron or a cosmopolitan, while admiring the next exhibition (until 29th June 2018) in L’Alternatif Art Gallery of the American Artist Auguste Garufi, untitled “I have forgotten how it is I belong among blossoms and birds”.
Auguste Garufi, an American artist with ten thousand works, is above all, by his own admission, a poet who follows his inspiration. He writes, paints, sculpts, prints, installs and makes sacred ordinary space. His paintings are in his image, sometimes subtle and delicate facts of Japanese paper and petals that would fly away if they were sewn, and sometimes darker, intense, troubling female figures that scrutinize our soul. Poetic lightness is always present, poems printed and hidden in his hanging paintings or in his “vessels”, his sculpture made of oxidized paper with silver leaf, or his little bronze Ucello birds or paper nested in an outstretched hand.
Everything with Auguste Garufi brings us to the purity, the lightness of the materials, the softness of the colors. This is perhaps his great concern, thanks to his printed poetry, his rounds of hands that invite us to dance, his light Japanese kozo papers that rub shoulders with metal fabrics, he asks us to experiment his new dimension. His universe creates a unique spiritual artistic emotion (photo credits: Alexandre Plateaux).
In order to learn more about the artist, here are a couple of questions asked to him:
