The Villa Noailles opens summer exhibitions in Hyères and Toulon
Summer in Toulon and Hyères is on! This weekend, the Villa Noailles opened their new summer exhibitions in the two Southern cities. Earlier this year, it was announced that the 35th Hyères Festival will be postponed to October, while Design Parade will only happen in 2021. Even with this unprecedented health crisis, the Villa Noailles managed to curate a comprehensive artistic programme. The weekend started with a detour in Porquerolles for a visit of the Fondation Carmignac’s new exhibition. Back in Hyères, Jean-Pierre Blanc inaugurated L’Annexe, a new art space in the heart of the city designed by the Hyères-born duo Superpoly (Antoine Grulier and Thomas Dufour), whose work seduced the jury of the 2016 edition of Design Parade Toulon. In this space, they paid tribute to Charles and Marie-Laure de Noailles with a big fresco printed on a large curtain visible from the street. The next day, guests were invited to travel to Toulon for the opening of the François Halard and Matthieu Cossé exhibitions, respectively held at Hôtel des Arts and the ‘ancien évêché’. The colorful work of Alexandre Benjamin Navet was also featured in situ in three different locations, including the Rue des Arts. These exhibitions were introduced as part of a larger project at Galerie du Canon recounting the rich post-war artistic history of Toulon. On July 11th, the weekend ended back in Hyères at the Villa Noailles in presence of Mayor Jean-Pierre Giran and UNESCO General Director Audrey Azoulay. For this occasion, Jean-Pierre Blanc and Pascale Mussard’s guests were able experience the work of Sara Favriau and Antoine Carbonne, who both completed an artistic residency at the Villa Noailles. Simultaneously, the exhibition “Héros, Héroïnes” brought several artists together to shine a light on the people from Hyères and Paris who continued to work tirelessly in the frontline while France was in lockdown.
