LA BULLE - August 2025

A break, a moment to take our minds off things and share our discoveries...

#1 Villa Noailles

Perched high above Hyères, Villa Noailles is one of the unsung gems of modern architecture in France. Commissioned in the 1920s by Charles and Marie-Laure de Noailles, great patrons of the arts, this residence was conceived as a manifesto of creative freedom, a place of retreat and reflection.

Designed by Robert Mallet-Stevens, a major figure in the modernist movement, the villa adopts cubist lines, cut-out volumes, and plays of light and white. At the time, its aesthetic contrasted with regional traditions; today, it embodies a certain idea of yesterday's future. Villa Noailles is also a witness to a prolific era: it has welcomed the footsteps of Giacometti, Cocteau, Man Ray, and Buñuel. Artists who resonate with this space, conceived as a work of art in itself.

Open to the public, it now houses an art center and international festivals dedicated to fashion, design, and photography. More than a building, it is a meeting point for forms, ideas, and worldviews.

#2 Gabriele Münter - Painting without detours

Bringing together nearly 170 works (paintings, drawings, photographs, engravings, embroideries), the exhibition highlights the career of a major figure of German Expressionism, Gabriele Münter, who long remained in the shadow of her companion and collaborator Vassily Kandinsky.

Organized chronologically, the exhibition explores Gabriele Münter's stylistic richness and freedom of vision across more than sixty years of creation. It demonstrates the emancipation of an artist determined to assert her own voice while exploring multiple mediums and motifs.

It is also an opportunity to restore Münter to her rightful place in the history of modern art, by revealing a work that is at once intimate, vivid and radically personal.

#3 Trio of the Ardents

In this flamboyant novel, Patrick Grainville paints a trio of bodies and thoughts caught in the light of fire and desire. Three figures, three destinies entangled in a ballet of emotions that blends creativity, fascination, and carnal tension.

A vibrant text, inhabited by painting, for those who are more attracted to tumult than silence. A reading that immerses them in the depths of the visible, where art and passion devour each other.

#4 The GMT complication

The GMT complication introduces a parallel reading of time by adding a secondary indication to local time—often marked by a dedicated hand, a rotating flange, or a peripheral 24-hour display. Initially developed to meet the needs of aviators, it quickly became a popular tool for travelers, diplomats, and anyone whose bearings oscillate between several time zones.

By simultaneously displaying two distinct times, the GMT function creates a discreet link between here and elsewhere, between the present moment and another unfolding at a distance. A doubled presence, reminiscent of another latitude.

On the dial, it traces a new line of technical reading, bringing a functional dimension always in the service of readability.