Breathing fresh air into the formulaic art scene, Atelier 7 is a chic, discreet gallery that resuscitates the forgotten genre of the Parisian art salon.

A stylish home where people go to mingle with art, and each other, Atelier 7 has the perfect pedigree for the part. The Montparnasse home-studio was built in 1904 by Louis Süe and André Mare to attract the artists who lived in the neighborhood—and boy did it work! None other than Picasso settled in from 1911-1913.

Exactly a century after the two-storey apartment, which butts against the side of the Cemetière du Montparnasse, was built, Louise Brody, a graphic designer, and her architect husband, moved in. Inspired by the space’s unusual artistic past, they decided to make it into a gallery to showcase the work of their talented circle of friends.

“Sharing the space and living with these artists’ work for five weeks is part of the experience.”

For each five-week exhibition, the couple fills their living room with the work of a different artist. Which means their convictions have to be spot on: not only do they have to believe in the artist, they need to love their work enough to want to live it with it, too.

In contrast to the abstract paintings by Nieves Salzmann earlier this year, the walls at Atelier 7 are now filled with the sensual, elegant images of the George Clooney of photography, Ferrante Ferranti, an artist Brody has worked with for fifteen years.

To say she knows the material well is an understatement: she did the layout for the last twelve of his photography books. Choosing which ones to live with was a piece a cake for Brody who carefully curates her space like the pages in her books, shifting images around to get the perfect juxtaposition of forms, composition and color. In the case of the Ferrante, that meant creating the perfect vibrations between his energetic colors and tactiley black and whites.

This sense of intimacy, from the setting to the set up, is what makes Atelier 7 so special for the artists as well as the visitors. “I really wanted to introduce his work to a larger audience, and like other artists, he felt at home showing here,” says Brody.

It’s also a great way to get a feeling for what an artwork would look like in a home, which is something the stark walls of your traditional gallery hardly help with. While Atelier 7 is not your typical home, it gives you a sense of how the art interacts with furniture, shelving and lighting.

Which brings me to the next fabulous part of Atelier 7—not only can you experience amazing art in an intimate setting and meet the artists (Ferranti is there every weekend during the show), you can also lounge around some phenomenal mid-century furniture from Noguchi, Corbusier, and Matégot. If you fall in love with the furniture, the multitasking Brody, who also runs a vintage furniture-scouting agency called City Styles, can help you find some of your own.

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Photographs by Ferrante Ferrante: from December 3, 2009-January 17, 2010 (including New Years day!)
Atelier 7: 242 boulevard Raspail, 75014 Paris
Hours: Thursday-Sunday from 3pm-7pm, or contact me to make an appointment
Prices: Unframed, fine-art prints (€380E-650); Framed, artist-printed in limited edition of 7 (€1300); Color prints on wood support (€800-1400); Black-and-white prints, framed or mounted on wood support (€480-2300).

All photos by Fabrice Fortin for Paris By Appointment Only™

The holiday season is as much about delight, as deceit. The presents we give/get rarely live up to the pomp of their packaging. To resolve this annual angst, the clever art-meets-fashion concept brand, Slow and Steady Wins the Race, has turned the act of giving into the gift itself.

Rolling art and anticipation into one, ‘Presents’ is an ephemeral collection of artist-designed nesting boxes that celebrate the experience and excitement of giving and receiving. What lies inside the boxes is an afterthought—the presentation is the present itself. (Can you think of a more suitable endnote to the worst financial year in decades?)

Inhabiting the Brachfeld gallery in Paris for the month of the December, ‘Presents’ is an art show/pop-up shop in synch with the brand’s deconstructionist design manifesto. Creating collections like chapters in a living archive, Slow and Stead Wins the Race focuses on sartorial notions (evening), social critiques (luxe?) categories (white t-shirt) or design fundamentals (seams). Each mini-range of six to eight pieces is numbered and indexed for future reference like files in a library.

In keeping with the brand’s measured and meticulous maturation process, the concept behind ‘Presents’ has been brewing in the pot for a while.

“One year my sculpture professor in college told us about a gift experience he created for his wife,” says Slow and Steady Wins the Race founder, Mary Ping, who graduated from Vassar in 2000. “He created a nesting box of trinkets from the dollar store and she spent thirty minutes unwrapping each surprise within a surprise.”

“I thought it was such a great idea to offer that lasting memory as a gift.”

As fascinated with the thought process as its outcome, Slow and Steady Wins the Race wanted to see how their creative buddies would approach the challenge of a present-less present, and so divided them up into groups.

Tauba Auerbach and Hannes Hetta created a three-piece set of mirrored boxes with patterned bases, turning the tiny spaces into kaleidoscopic infinity rooms.

Matt Wolf and Carl Williamson’s Jewish Kind of Christmas offers a smorgasbord of quirky delights, including a special mixed tape, a piece of fool’s gold and a glass sun catcher.

Terence Koh and Garrick Gott (tongues firmly in cheeks) created a set of six white paper nesting boxes that spell x-a-n-a-x in hand cut paper letters, with a final pill in the end

Dorothée Perret created a French family time capsule in concrete, with each person in the house adding a personal trinket to the mix. Her husband, Oscar Tuazon brought the wine.

In addition to the box sets, Slow and Steady Wins the Race has brought some of its archive icons out for the occasion, such as a festive jumbo pearl necklace, a green velvet evening bag, a Birken-esque leather bag, futuristic sunglasses, and a faux fox stole in cream-colored cotton, the perfect avant-garde accessory to ring in the New Year.

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Brachfeld Gallery: 78 rue des Archives, 75003
Dates: December 1st-24th, 20009, Monday-Saturday (2pm-6pm)
Holiday Boxes: From 188E -3,333E, in series of 1-10.
Slow and Stead Wins the Race Accessories: Bamboo bag in green velvet (100E); Pearl Brooch (100E), Jumbo Pearl Necklace (100E), Four-sided Birkin-inspired Bag (1000E), Faux Fox Stole (150E)

In the wee morning hours of February 1st, 2008, a four-alarm fire ravaged the most ancient and atmospheric taxidermy shop in Paris.

For those familiar with Deyrolle—a crowded cabinet of curiosities located in a multi-room apartment above street level—the news was creepy, if not totally surreal (imagine all those dead beasts having to go through it all again??).“The scene had a Pompeii feeling to it, almost like an archeological dig,” recalls photographer Laurent Bochet of the charred and ransacked insides of the nearly two-hundred-year-old boutique. All of the furniture had gone up in smoke, an entire room was missing a ceiling, and close to 90% of the historic inventory was now a pile of smoking cinders.

A close friend of Deyrolle’s owner Louis Albert de Broglie, Bochet was miraculously given carte blanche to capture it all on film.

His only challenge: making sure his disfigured subjects didn’t disintegrate during their photo session.

Working quickly to snap the animals before they crumbled, Bochet set up a makeshift studio on site. In the harried two weeks following the fire, he shot close to 300 photographs, from eviscerated goats and roasted butterflies to liquefied canisters and sooty minerals.

Timed to coincide with the recent reopening of Deyrolle, the beautiful, haunting images have just been released in a soon-to-be collector’s book, 1000° C: Deyrolle, published by Assouline.

After nearly two years renovating the space and rebuilding the collection (thanks to the generous donations of its well-wishers) Deyrolle is back with new and improved digs, a paired down (yet still remarkable collection) as well as a temporary exhibition of Bochet’s stunning still-lives through December 1st (see below for prices).

Q&A with Photographer Laurent Bochet

How did you get access to Deyrolle after the fire?
I knew the owner, Louis Albert de Broglie, so when I found out about the fire I contacted him. I was very curious about what had happened to the space and I wanted to see it for myself. When I got there I was completely shocked, it was so beautiful, but yet so sad. For an institution like Deyrolle, it was a dramatic event, not only for its historic importance, but also because how devastatingly beautiful the fire scene was.

When and where were the photos taken?
I was lucky to be able to take the photos at Deyrolle between the small window of time after the fire and before work began on the space.  I only had two weeks to do it. The fire was on February 1st, so that meant I had until the 15th or 16th to complete the series. The animals were so fragile that the urgency was in capturing them before they completely disintegrated.

What was the most difficult part of the project?
I knew how long it would take me to photograph the animals, but the hardest part was organizing the portraits of the witnesses, the firemen, owners and collectors who somehow participated in the aftermath of the fire. Most of the animals were “saved” by the fireman who arrived on the scene. So I asked the firemen to come back and pose for me. They said yes right away because this type of thing doesn’t happen to them everyday.

How did the firemen react to the scene?
The fire had been raging for several hours when the firemen showed up so the place was thick with black smoke. Here they are in a Parisian apartment (because the shop is technically a large apartment), and they’re in the dark surrounded by wild animals. They were confused and lost. One fireman told me how freaked out they were when they ran into a wild tiger! Suffice to say it was a very surreal and scary experience.

Why did you choose “1000° C” as the title of the book?
The high concentration of animals and the large size of each room meant that the fire burned for many hours, creating a temperature as high as 1000 degrees. That’s why there were so many beautiful things to photograph—they were melted and deformed without being completely destroyed.

How did the photographs influence the book layout?
While the individual photographs stand on their own, I imagined them as a collective document of a specific event. I’m very sensitive to time; most of my projects are linked to a specific time and place. The book is divided into different series on animals, objects, butterflies, and portraits, like chapters in an archeological index. I wanted them to be as descriptive as possible. I tried to apply Deyrolle’s methodology and vision to the layout of the book.

Were there certain subjects that touched you more than others?
They all affected me equally. While photographing the animals I never stopped thinking about the fact that they once were alive.  For me, it was criminal to put them in the trash without paying tribute to them somehow by taking their photo.

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To buy the book: click here or pre-order a copy through Amazon (USA release Oct 31, 2009)
To view the exhibition: visit Deyrolle (46 rue de Bac, Paris 7th) through December 1st, 2009
Prints available for sale during the exhibition: portraits (400€); objects (1500€), animals (3500-8000€)

If you can’t make it to Paris for the show and would like to purchase prints, contact me to be put in touch with the photographer directly.

Photos by Nicholas Calcott for Paris By Appointment Only™

Despite distance traveled or time lived abroad, an expatriate’s cultural roots are remarkably resilient. With the accumulated weight of new experiences and customs pushing them deeper underground, they become more organized, focusing their strength on their most distinctive features.

As any expat will tell you, these gnarly little buggers can sprout up out of nowhere. For Maria De Morais (aka Milu Cachat), a Portuguese artist who has lived in Paris for thirty years, her cultural heritage caught her by surprise, not in her subjects, but in the shapes of her paintings.

“Someone stopped by my studio and saw all of my paintings laid out on the ground and said ‘no doubt you are Portuguese, these look like azulejos,’” laughs De Morais while admiring the vibrant grid of colors at her feet. “I hadn’t realized it at first, but the paintings are perfect squares, just like the ceramic tiles that Portugal is famous for.”

Before she paints, De Morais thinks about the shape of the canvas that best suits her subject. Since she starting dreaming of flowers three years ago, she’s hasn’t been able to shake the simplicity and strength of the square.

“Sometimes I want to change subjects, but I feel like this one isn’t finished yet. Until my garden is complete, I will continue painting flowers.”

Her semi-abstract still lives of real and imagined flowers are absorbing and provocative when viewed on their own. But when placed side by side, they take on a decorative dimension, like a majestic mosaic of hand-painted tiles.

De Morais’ graphic sensibilities have been honed during nearly twenty years as a set decorator for the most influential interior publications in Europe (Maison Coté Sud, Wallpaper*, Elle Décoration Italy, France & Germany, to name a few). So it’s no surprise that her instinct for composition and color would find it’s way to her paintings, too.

“I like when there’s a sense of double vision,” says De Morais, whose flower variations often double as figures or even shadows and shapes in a room.

But for a full sensory overload, there’s nothing better than a visit to De Morais’ Parisian flat. You’ll enjoy some delicious tea and freshly baked scones surrounding by a creative overdose of sketches, albums, clippings, and knick-knacks culled from all corners of the world.

What better way to shop for art than visiting the space that inspires it?

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Price: Paintings are €600-€3000 depending on size
Appointments: If you’re interested in Maria’s work,  contact me to arrange a visit with the artist at her home atelier.

These days, you don’t have to be an heir to the throne to justify having your portrait done, nor do you don’t need a royal inheritance to pay for one. Why? Because more and more contemporary artists are loosening up classical portraiture, divesting the genre of its stuffy elitism and stratospheric prices.

That’s why I plan on having my face stitched on fabric.

Call me crazy, but when I find the funds to immortalize my mug, I’m going the way of the needle— and I know who’s going to do the stitching!

For years I’ve admired the work of French artist Justin Morin. Using embroidery as his main medium, Morin makes art out of different types of threads. From chunky macramé sculptures and hand-embroidered stickers to Birkin bags stitched in silk on cotton fabric, he gives a conceptual dimension to handicrafts by modernizing their subjects and settings.

“It all started with the notion of the link; how relationships between people are created, how they cross one another, come together and come apart. The vocabulary used to explain these ideas resonated for me visually in thread,” says the 29-yr-old artist.

Ignoring his professors’ protests, Morin taught himself how to embroider while studying at the Beaux Art in Metz. Shedding embroidery’s image as an outdated minor craft, he’s refreshed its status by giving it a chic, contemporary context in which to thrive.

Since moving to Paris in 2003, Morin has pioneered a new portrait style that’s best described as experimental realism with a tactile twist. Combining digital photography with state-of-the-art textile design, Morin uses needles, thread and a kaleidoscopic range of color to freeze faces in time.  A crafty confluence of fast and slow techniques give his canvases a super sleek, handmade feel, one that begins with a photography session in Morin’s apartment and ends in an atelier in Belgium with a 12-needle industrial sewing machine.

What makes embroidered canvasses so special is the behavior of the thread. The same thread stitched in one direction will change color when stitched in another because it catches the light differently.

For example, Morin’s all-white portrait prototype looks metallic, off-white, gray and creamy at times, but the colors are just an illusion: the entire portrait is made out of the same exact white thread.

Even though the canvases are in 2-D, the fluctuations of light on the surface of the thread create a hologram effect that makes the embroidery just jump off the canvas. You can’t get that with painting and drawings. So if you’re like me and love the notion of one-of-a-kind portraits that pop, Morin is the man to stitch your mug.

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Prices: 1500€ for still lives, 2200€ for portraits
Approx canvas size: 50×60cm
Contact: send me an email to be put in touch with Justin

If in Paris be sure to check out this group show curated by Justin Morin:

“Scales of the universe, the definition of the frontier”
Featuring work by: Claire Decet, Samuel François, Corentin Grossmann, Justin Morin, Sandra Przyczynski and Markus Zimmermann

Galerie Jeanroch Dard, 13 rue des arquebusiers, 75003 Paris
June 27th through July 31st, 2009.
Opening party: June 27th from 18h – 21h