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CULTURE

Paris museum lifts photo ban over minister’s pics

The famous Musée d'Orsay in Paris has had to drop its ban on visitors taking photos of its artworks after the country's own Culture Minister openly flouted the restriction.

Published: 19 March 2015 13:55 CET
Paris museum lifts photo ban over minister's pics
Visitors will now be allowed to take photos at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris once again. Photo: Terratta/Flickr

The well-known museum, that hosting many impressionist paintings, is now aligning itself with rules in force in other major museums in Paris and around the world, which allow visitors to take photos as long as flashes and tripods aren't used.

The sudden lifting of the no-photos policy, which had been in place since 2010, happened on Wednesday, after French Culture Minister Fleur Pellerin took a picture of a canvas by artist Pierre Bonnard whose post-impressionist paintings are currently being exhibited in the museum.

Pellerin posted her image on her Instagram feed on Monday, triggering an outcry by Internet users who complained she was getting away with a practice forbidden to ordinary visitors.

 

#bonnard au Musée d'Orsay

Une photo publiée par Fleur Pellerin (@fleurpellerin) le 16 Mars 2015 à 15h32 PDT

She also posted pics on her Twitter account.

"This decision is applicable immediately," said Guy Cogeval, the president of the Musée d'Orsay and L'Orangerie, in an internal memo.

Cogeval said the issue has been under discussion for several months, but admitted that the culture minister's open flaunting of the ban had made the need for a decision more urgent.

However the museum insists that using flash photography, tripods and selfie sticks is still forbidden.

The culture ministry has its own, non-binding, charter on photography in French museums that urges commonsense approaches to taking photos in museums as long as it doesn't disturb other visitors or pose a danger to artworks.

The decision to lift the ban was however heralded by one Paris art blogger.

Bernard Hasquenoph, who started the blog "Louvre pour tous" ("The Louvre for Everyone") has been fighting for many years for visitors to have the freedom to take photos in museums.

"This is a victory for the sharing of culture," he said. "The Musée d'Orsay was against the current".

SEE ALSO: Paris museums set for selfie stick ban

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CULTURE

New songs mark sixth anniversary of French star Johnny Hallyday’s death

Fans of the late Johnny Hallyday, "the French Elvis Presley", will be able to commemorate the sixth anniversary of his death with two songs never released before.

Published: 17 November 2023 09:05 CET
New songs mark sixth anniversary of French star Johnny Hallyday's death

Hallyday, blessed with a powerful husky voice and seemingly boundless energy, died in December 2017, aged 74, of lung cancer after a long music and acting career.

After an estimated 110 million records sold during his lifetime – making him one of the world’s best-selling singers -Hallyday’s success has continued unabated beyond his death.

Almost half of his current listeners on Spotify are under the age of 35, according to the streaming service, and a posthumous greatest hits collection of “France’s favourite rock’n’roller”, whose real name was Jean-Philippe Leo
Smet, sold more than half a million copies.

The two new songs, Un cri (A cry) and Grave-moi le coeur (Engrave my heart), are featured on two albums published by different labels which also contain already-known hits in remastered or symphonic versions.

Un cri was written in 2017 by guitarist and producer Maxim Nucci – better known as Yodelice – who worked with Hallyday during the singer’s final years.

At the time Hallyday had just learned that his cancer had returned, and he “felt the need to make music outside the framework of an album,” Yodelice told reporters this week.

Hallyday recorded a demo version of the song, accompanied only by an acoustic blues guitar, but never brought it to full production.

Sensing the fans’ unbroken love for Hallyday, Yodelice decided to finish the job.

He separated the voice track from the guitar which he felt was too tame, and arranged a rockier, full-band accompaniment.

“It felt like I was playing with my buddy,” he said.

The second song, Grave-moi le coeur, is to be published in December under the artistic responsibility of another of the singer’s close collaborators, the arranger Yvan Cassar.

Hallyday recorded the song – a French version of Elvis’s Love Me Tender – with a view to performing it at a 1996 show in Las Vegas.

But in the end he did not play it live, opting instead for the original English-language version, and did not include it in any album.

“This may sound crazy, but the song was on a rehearsal tape that had never been digitalised,” Cassar told AFP.

The new songs are unlikely to be the last of new Hallyday tunes to delight fans, a source with knowledge of his work said. “There’s still a huge mass of recordings out there spanning his whole career,” the source said.

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