With Paris in Mind

Book excerpt: Dead Hemingway. Dead Baker. Dead Joyce and dead Fitzgerald. Dead Stein. Dead Picasso. Dead Barnes and dead Truffaut. Piaf dead and Breton dead. Gainsbourg dead and Monet dead. Bernhardt dead and Satie dead. Baldwin dead and Foucault dead too.The Parisian artists of our dreams have been dead a long time. It is now our chance to live in the moment. The romantic fantasy of mythic Paris is always close at hand, but what is it really like to be a resident artist today? Does hyper-connectivity help or hinder creativity? Are cities still necessary? Are artists? Will Mountain Cox, who has made a career out of identifying and championing young, fresh talent, and who himself arrived in Paris as a newcomer in search of inspiration, pursues the elusive answers in this searching collection of conversations with the most intriguing emergent minds of our urgent time. Interviews with twenty-two vibrant new voices, accompanied by extensive photographs, give a candid and insightful look at making it (or moving on) in Paris today, sparking essential social dialogue about new art, how we make it, for whom we make it, and above all, why now.Featuring: Romy Alizée - Luis Miguel Andrade - Oscar d'Artois - Bagarre - Yotam Ben-David - Bianca Bondi - Gaëlle Choisne - Amélie Derlon Cordina - Julien Creuzet - John Denison - Wendy Huynh - Merryn Jeann - Nina Leger - Léa Mysius - Adam Naas - Lucy K. Shaw - Billie Thomassin - Alcidia Vulbeau