made in france

With the exception of « Je t'aime, moi non plus » by Serge Gainsbourg, and very few other songs, French pop culture from the 60's and 70's has never achieved much notoriety abroad. The exhibition project « Made in France, a French pop phenomenon » aims at presenting lesser known cultural riches to an international public.
Stemming from the works of reknown French artists in England such as Serge Gainsbourg, Brigitte Bardot, Françoise Hardy or Catherine Deneuve, the exhibition will enable visitors to discover an array of artists in the fields of music (pop, movie soundtracks, audio illustration), cinema, fashion, photography, graphism and design.
The itinerary presented extends from the middle of the 60's until the beginning of the 70's. The choice of artists, albeit subjective and incomplete, outlines a retrospective of the POP movement in France and sheds some light on how it is still influencing today's fashion, music, and graphic arts.
Overall project
The exhibition « made in france : a french POP phenomenon » will happen in May 2008. It will debut in London, and is expected to travel to New York, LA, Tokyo, Paris, Rome, and Berlin.
It will gather for the first time a selection of the leading French photographers and artists, whose work spans the years 1965 to 1973 that we define as the golden age of the POP years in France.
There will be an opening concert with British artists covering or rearranging songs of French artists, a big party to launch the event, a compilation with rare tracks from the era featuring male and female singers, bands, movie soundtracks and library music composers, a pop film festival that will take place at the Bfi in London, and at the French Institute. And of course a book that will be the first illustrated reference on the subject, in spite of the growing interest and requests around the world for influencial French artists like Serge Gainsbourg, Michel Polnareff, Jean-Christophe Averty, François de Roubaix, Nicolas Schöffer, Michel Magne, Pierre Cardin, Michel Legrand, Jean-Claude Vannier, Pierre Paulin, Olivier Mourgue, Jack Arel, André Courrèges, Paco Rabanne, and Guy Peellaert among others.
Several photographers and artists will contribute original pieces to the exhibition and the book (Guy Bourdin, William Klein, Jeanloup Sieff, Tony Frank, Irving Penn, Jean-Marie Perier, Peter Knapp, Helmut Newton, Willy Rizzo, Giancarlo Botti). In addition, many graphics from private collections will also be used: photos, album covers, posters, magazines, scopitones, videos, films, clothing.
The nine themes of the exhibition :
-pop music
-cinema
-soundtracks & library music
-TV & media
-fashion
-product design
-visual arts
-sex, éroticism et drugs
-clubs, bars & venues
Partners & sponsors :
Jane Birkin (the godmother of our exhibition)
Agnès B. (UK)
Vogue France Magazine
Pierre Cardin
Paco Rabanne
Patricia de Roubaix
Eléonore de Lavandeyra-Schöffer
Guy Peellaert
Tony Frank
Hachette-Fillipacchi archives
L'Institut National de l'Audiovisuel
La Cinémathèque Française
Le musée Gaumont
Pathé-Gaumont archives
La maison de la publicité
XXO Design
The French Institute of London (UK)
The French Embassy in London (UK)