Freelance Photography : Bertrand Celce

Paris Artists' Ateliers

In "la Miroiterie", a collective artist studio in Menilmontant

There is something you should not miss if you are interested in Art and stay in Paris at this time of the year . Every year at the end of summer, a group of artists working in the Menilmontant neighbourhood organizes three days of "portes ouvertes" (open doors) with visitors welcomed in the ateliers, to see the works , the places , and chat with the artists . The event is very well planned, with massive printing of a detailed map of the neighbourhood with exact locations of the studios . The event takes place in the vicinity of Menilmontant street , in the 20th arrondissenent, a district wich still retains today its popular parisian touch and was immortalized through famous photographers works like the ones by Willy Ronis . Even today, when you walk across this part of Paris , you can often feel the ghosts of this bygone era, wich most of us know only through the photographs .

Frederick Holmes, who is from New YorkThe first artist I spoke to was Frederick Holmes . It was at "la Miroiterie" a defunct mirror factory transformed into a collection of ateliers . I was taking pictures and we talked together , that's when I asked where he was from . He was leaving soon for a few days in N.Y. before coming back here .

I love these "portes ouvertes" because you can not only speak with artists, but also visualize living and working spaces in the back alleys of this old Paris neighbourhood that you can't even imagine when you walk in the street . And it is quite refreshing to look at the decors and the details in the different studios ( the view on the right was taken in another studio a few blocks away ).
A pochoir work at la Miroiterie, by artiste-ouvrier, is bach , and 6lexThis pochoir work was also at la miroiterie , but the artists who made it were not present . The three authors, known under their artist names, are is bach , 6lex and artiste ouvrier. They created here a composition made of individual pochoirs crafted into a multifaceted mosaic .
By the way , this area in Paris is where you can see very interesting pochoirs and murals . Here is a link to some of them .
Annie Rosès in her AtelierAnnie Rosès has a special love for red and black, and her paintings carry the depth and the energy of these two colors. I used to make prints of her paintings in my lab and learnt to appreciate the red bust of fire springing from a dominantly dark ensemble.email : annieroses [at] wanadoo [dot] frPic , in front of his recent workPic was a few years ago into an ultra-realism phase, with paintings inspired by french and hollywoodian movies . He nows paints figurative works at the limit of abstraction, where movies and photography still play an important role .

Back from Budapest

View on the city

Back from Budapest , where I stayed a few days for a job . I also visited several places across Hungary . I had not been in the country since a few years , and on my first two visits I had not really stayed in Budapest . Time to correct that : The city has great architecture and provide the most welcome respite from living in Paris . Its pace is more gentle , less stressed . I stayed in a place near the National Museum , at walking distance from main sites of interest.

The first day, I bought a transportation pass : The best way to enjoy freely the city with its subway, tram , bus and trolleybus system . The weather in september was quite warm and people in Budapest were relaxed , and there was this vacation feeling in the mood . If you stay a while in Budapest , you will regularly walk on its bridges , because this is where the Buda- and -Pest parts of the city meet and breath. The Danube seems much wider than the Seine in Paris , and the strollers appreciate the breeze and the view from the bridges . There are a lot of cyclists and rollerbladers around , be careful when walking on the sidewalks....

World war II german soldiers with designer glasses ? That is not rare in Budapest . These two guys wait their turn, as a scene of a movie about the french Resistance is being shot in a street . See the real bullets impacts on the house behind : 1945, or 1956 ? Another day , I saw the preparation of two double-decker London buses for a scene of Spielberg's movie about the Munich Olympics . The city has such a great architectural diversity that it can accomodate any setting needs . You need Vienna in the 1900's , Berlin in the 40's or London in the 70's , Budapest will do the job .

Szoborpark : The many statues of the socialist era have been taken away from their initial location when the socialist regime collapsed, and gathered in the "Statue Park", in an ordinary suburb at a distance from the city center . To reach it , I took tram N° 6 southward from Jozsefaros to Moricz Zsigmond Korter, then bus #3 to Campona, and then bus # 50 to Szoborpark , such a long way to reach the purgatory of yesterday's heroes . Nice range of Lenins , proletarian figures , liberating soldiers shaking hands with workers, and the compulsory spanish war heroes....