Virtual Soirée Recording store
Not a Conley & Silvers Member, but want access to our Recording Library? Good news, we are making our past tour recordings available for purchase to all of our C&S friends!
With over 50 lectures already in the library, new tours will be added at the conclusion of each Virtual Soirée series. Recordings are available as a set of multiple tours packaged at a discounted rate averaging $10 per tour. Peruse the selection below and select the subject of your choice for access to stream our virtual tours online until September 30, 2022.
For an example tour, see this complimentary recording of a past talk where celebrated author Ross King joined us to discuss Monet’s Water Lilies as wartime paintings. Better yet, check-out the kind words by our loyal C&S fans here.
Paris Virtual Soirée: Echoes of the Colonial Past
Paris Virtual Soirée: Echoes of the Colonial Past
Your purchase includes four tour recordings. Upon purchase, you will be emailed a link where you can download a PDF of your recording list! This PDF will have descriptions, links and passwords to the tour recordings, and will expire on December 31, 2021.
Revisit Paris with Julian, exploring lesser known museums, gardens & neighbourhoods that all share traces of France’s colonial past. Together we will unravel this aspect of the city’s legacy through monuments and buildings that are fortuitous survivors of temporary exhibitions or deliberately permanent structures. Often neglected or overlooked, sometimes controversial, these vestiges are a fascinating part of the cultural and historical fabric of this multi-faceted city, which never fails to enchant and surprise.
Topics
The Secret Garden: Exhibitionism & Tropical Agronomy in the Bois de Vincennes: Done the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower and Versailles? Looking for something different? Then I invite you to accompany me through a Vietnamese gateway and across a Khmer naga bridge and stumble upon a lost garden on the eastern outskirts of Paris. Filled with traces of France’s former colonial possessions, little-known to Parisians and even less to foreigners, this extraordinary place of memory is a nostalgic testimony to long-gone exhibitions visited by millions. Discover in an hour how Parisians once did a Tour of the World in a day.
Displaying the Colonies: The Story of the Palais de la Porte Dorée: Today, let me take you on a guided tour of the Palais de la Porte Dorée. Together, we will unravel the remarkable story of this unique building, originally constructed for the 1931 Exposition Coloniale. Hear about its multiple transformations from “permanent” museum of the colonies to national museum of immigration, and explore its unique art and architecture, taking a look at its extravagant and now controversial frescoes and sculpted façade, the longest in Europe.
When the Colonies Came to the Latin Quarter: The Mosque & the Colonial School: Best known for its universities, bookshops and vibrant student life, the Latin Quarter on the Left Bank of Paris is also home to two of the city’s most interesting colonial-era buildings. Many tourists enjoy mint tea in the atmospheric, bird-filled café of the Mosque without realizing that penetrating the interior of this religious institute is like stepping into the gardens of Andalucia. Hordes of visitors flock to the Jardin du Luxembourg on sunny afternoons, but few look up and notice the ornate North African façades of the former colonial school on the southern side of the gardens. Join me on a journey of discovery that will take us to Cambodia and Morocco in order to unwrap the stories of these unique institutions.
Museums on the Move: Asian Art Exposed: In today’s talk, we will take a brief look at the histories behind three major Paris museums: the Guimet, the Cernuschi and the Quai Branly. All three display important collections of Asian art, but this has not always been the case. Each has come into being in a different way, not always free from controversy. Collectors’ whims, presidential cocktails on tropical islands and inter-museum artefact shuffling all play a part, and at the heart of this story lies the pressing and currently very topical question of who displays whose art and why?