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THE
INSTIGATOR
Art & Culture magazine
NEWS
PHOTO / Book signing of "Fast + Louche" by Derek Blasberg with Valéry Dardenne, Editorial Director of THE INSTIGATOR (left), Derek Blasberg (middle), Zoltan Alexander, Editor-in-chief of THE INSTIGATOR (right) / Photo © Courtesy of SAY WHO
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DEREK BLASBERG
FAST + LOUCHE
LIBRAIRIE 7L
PARIS
FAST + LOUCHE
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Fashion nightlife provocateur Derek Blasberg is a New York-based writer and editor of the US edition of Vanity Fair. With his current book, he revisits his cult column Fast + Louche between 2009 and 2012, initially published in Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine.
Social and personal archives of wild nights, the chaos, the glamour, and an era that predates social media and the world of selfies.
The book signing took place tonight at the Librairie 7L - Karl Lagerfeld’s former studio-library - for a special book signing event, which compiles three years of endless parties and nights out of every kind.
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The book is part of a new wave of beautiful volumes (featuring illustrator Stéphane Manel, artist Helga Stentzel, and others) by Sarah Andelman’s imprint Just An Idea, this is the intimate story of a fashion globe-trotter.
The idea for the book dates back to 2009, when his friend Christopher Bollen - then Deputy Editor of Interview magazine - asked if he wanted to write a column for the publication. This was well before the advent of the iPhone generation, when New York nightlife was still mythical.
“Nightlife was not better at the time, just different, and I don’t think we should idealise the past. I do think we measured the success of a night differently; we measured it by the crazy fun we had, the conversations, the all-night dancing until sunrise, broken heels, and missed flights” Derek Blasberg
This book celebrates that brief moment when we once lived first, before publishing stories on social media to prove that we were there.
“Fast + Louche” / Derek Blasberg
Librairie 7L
Paris (France)
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PHOTO / "5 BIS" the book launch of Charlotte Gainsbourg / Photo © Courtesy of Galerie du Cloître
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CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG
5 BIS
ARLES
5 BIS
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Actress, singer, and director Charlotte Gainsbourg likes taking pictures.
Since starting at a very young age, she has built a career spanning cinema, music, and personal projects, both in France and internationally. Alongside her films, she pursued a musical path where songwriting, vocals, and performance offer a different way to explore emotion and lived experience.
Some thirty years after her father’s passing, using a Hasselblad, Charlotte Gainsbourg stepped into memory and captured the interior of her parents’ home at 5 bis rue de Verneuil in Paris. Photography thus becomes an act of encounter, to draw her closer to her father’s memory
In 2021, with Jane by Charlotte, she dedicated the film to her mother, Jane Birkin. She shifted her work further towards the act of observing, portraiture, and bringing subjects into presence, and developed a personal body of work driven by an uncompromising commitment to authenticity and a profound connection to the intimate.
In Arles, during Les Rencontres d’Arles, she presented her book and exhibition 5 BIS, at La Galerie du Cloître of images she made of her childhood home, before the exhibition ravellies to the Saint Laurent Babylone store-gallery on 24 September.
“5 BIS” by Charlotte Gainsbourg
La Galerie du Cloître
Les Rencontres d’Arles
Arles (France)
6 juillet au 4 octobre 2026
Saint Laurent Babylone
24 September 2026
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PHOTO / an afternoon in the Jardin du Luxembourg, Paris - Reading / Photo © Courtesy of Sylvain Marcoux
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ÉDITIONS STOCK
MA NUIT AU MUSÉE
PARIS
MA NUIT AU MUSÉE
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France’s oldest publishing house, Éditions Stock, has built a prestigious and diverse catalogue encompassing both French and international literature, and has published seven collections, one of which is Ma Nuit au musée (My Night at the Museum). The collection was launched in 2018 and has since published nearly 30 volumes.
Sylvain Marcoux chose five books to review.
On a hot, luminous summer afternoon, time is suspended in long days. Stolen hours. Those are the moments when you let yourself be swept away by a book, being devoured, dreamy, and philosophised.
“Beauty is language, memory is material, emotion is a signature. I had a dream, and imagined myself spending a night in a museum, finding myself alone before the artworks, listening to the silence, observing, feeling, and drawing upon beauty to live a unique experience.” Sylvain Marcoux
This is precisely the distinctive experience of the series Ma nuit au musée by Éditions Stock.
Conceived and edited by Alina Gurdiel, the collection is built around a singular experience: inviting different authors to embark on an intimate, timeless moment by spending an entire evening and night alone in the museum of their choice. From these nocturnal interludes emerge unique and unexpected narratives, where evocative artworks become the starting point for multifaceted explorations. Blending poetry, philosophical reflection, aesthetic appreciation, and sociological analysis, each book opens up a fresh dialogue between literature, heritage, and creativity.​​​​​​
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Bleu Bacon
by Yannick Haenel
Haenel explores a fascinating encounter with the incandescent work of Francis Bacon at the Centre Pompidou (Paris).
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L’Imparfait
by Éric Reinhardt
Reinhardt imagines sleeping beside a Hermaphrodite at Galleria Borghese (Rome).
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Après Dieu
by Richard Malka
Malka engages in a philosophical dialogue with Voltaire at the Panthéon (Paris).
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La Nuit sur Commande
by Christine Angot
Angot revisits her childhood in Châteauroux at the Bourse de Commerce, Pinault Collection (Paris).
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Le Buveur de Brume
by Guillaume Gallienne
Gallienne explores his Georgian identity as he comes face to face with his great-grandmother’s portrait at the Musée National de Tbilisi (Tbilisi, Georgia).
These accounts are a source of pure emotion, the true magic of this collection, transforming artworks into conversations, turning spaces into realms of the imagination, and turning a museum visit into a profound inner experience.
Read without moderation.
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​“Ma Nuit au musée“
Collection by Édition Stock
"Bleu Bacon“ by Yannick Haenel
“L’Imparfait” by Éric Reinhardt
“Après Dieu“ by Richard Malka
“La Nuit sur Commande“ by Christine Angot
“Le Buveur de Brume” by Guillaume Gallienne ​​​
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PHOTO / Arthur Teboul / Photo © Courtesy of Arthur Teboul
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POEME
MINUTE
ARTHUR TEBOUL
THE ORACLE'S OFFICE
FOR PATIENTS
PARIS
ARTHUR TEBOUL
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Poetry. It seems it works better in France than anywhere else in the world.
Hidden in the heart of the 3rd Arrondissement in Paris, at 127 rue de Turenne, there is a discrete brass plate on the wall for a consultation office for patients who come for a “treatment” of a few minutes of poetry.
We made an appointment for this mysterious consultation with Arthur Teboul, the talented front man of the group Feu! Chatterton, and artist-poet above all, who invented the concept of Poem-Minute, a short, text-inspired consultation for impatient patients.
The cabinet office, decorated by the talented Mégane Servadio, has a rare elegance, The dark blue walls take root in a thick carpet with copper moons. The oracle's office is in the shape of a bridge or a banded curve, the poet's word is an arrow fired by the invisible into the light.
On the left wall an original drawing by Henri Matisse from the 40s, two sensual women dance there the unconscious premiers of La Ronde, its rare yellow radiates our expectation. This inspired Huis-Clos concludes with the moving reading of the newborn's sparkly text. I think of René Char, "The words that will arise know about us things we don't know about them".
“I know poetry is essential, but i don't know what for.”
“Je sais que la poésie est indispensable, mais je ne sais pas à quoi.” Jean Cocteau​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​
"The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion. Albert Camus
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PHOTO / "Yes" by William Klein / Photo © Courtesy of Thames & Hudson
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WILLIAM
KLEIN
YES
THAMES & HUDSON
LONDON
YES
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A book YES by William Klein was recently published by Thames & Hudson, London.
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With over 250 images, this career retrospective explores the late William Klein’s entire creative and artistic arc. Directed by Klein himself, from the selection of content to book design, this large-format publication looks back at his uncompromisingly creative lifetime, showcasing Klein’s prolific and relentlessly innovative contribution to the world of photography, art, design, and filmmaking.​​​​
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PHOTO / "One Hundred Summers" by Vanessa Branson / Photo © Courtesy of Vanessa Branson
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VANESSA BRANSON
ONE HUNDRED SUMMERS
A FAMILY STORY
LONDON
ONE HUNDRED SUMMERS
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“I could so easily have written a jolly romp of a book without putting the real bits in it,” says Vanessa Branson.
The book One Hundred Summers is a rollercoaster revelation that Richard Branson’s sister, Vanessa Branson has chosen to include about her life in this family memoir.
For THE INSTIGATOR she filmed herself walking in her garden in the countryside, talking about her book and family stories.
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