Geraldine Beigbeder's BIG IDEA ...
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| Elizabeth Reynard and Geraldine Beigbeder at the Hawley Arms, Camden Town |
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| East End street art attracts international visitors and admiration |
I was approached in London during July 2013 by Geraldine Beigbeder and her friend Elizabeth Reynard. Geraldine is famous in France as a writer on cultural affairs and her good friend Elizabeth has written around 18 biographies of well-known celebrities - most recently her book about Celine Dion was published and she was with Geraldine in London on her way to seek the rights to be biographer of Serena Williams, tennis champion. I was a little nonplussed to be approached by two eminent and celebrated Frenchwomen however Geraldine soon impressed me with her direct insightful approach so I was flattered to play host to both ladies - I rearranged photographs, paintings and drawings around the room I also tidied up the bookshelves full of manuscripts and chose two bottles of tolerable red wine with a choice of Ginseng, Ginger, Mint and Indian black teas to have on offer.
Geraldine is not published in English but she impressed me with her private text messages about how energy can flow between men and women; she told me that her book reviews our current cultural climate she perceives our young artists as nostalgic for the Beats and struggling in an attempt to mould this current age into their own form.
The Beigbeder family have property in Belgrade and seem to represent old cultural values now rising from the ashes of the former communist state. Frederick Beigbeder is a cousin and already well known in media and journalist circles across Europe. She is clearly a dynamic negotiator and visionary with a disciplined approach to her work, her range of contacts in the various arts is vast and spans all Europe and includes America with former president Adams an ancestor, she has membership of The Daughters of The Revolution, Her back ground includes an education in France, The Sorbonne and a spell writing scripts for T.V. She has a flat in St Germaine and loves to spend time on the Atlantic coast in the South-West. I was curious to know the purpose of this visit.
Our meeting went well and the next six days were spent introducing the two Frenchwomen to my artist contacts around London.
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| Writer and art curator Geraldine Beigbeder in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. |
Geraldine it transpired had a big idea she wanted to utilise her extensive network of powerful connections to establish Peter Doherty as a world class artist and to that end she proposed an ititial exhibition at the gallery in north east Paris of an old school-friend, Djamilla. This first exhibition would be succeeded by others all the way to a triumphal show in New York art capital of the world. Notwithstanding steps already taken with that end in view I embraced the concept and the passion with which the French cultural pundit espoused it. As evidence of her sincerity she withdrew a wallet from her leather bag and from it produced six fifty euro notes with which to purchase a small drawing by Peter Doherty executed on A4 copier paper in grey and pink felt-tip pen entitled "Three figures".
The bottle of wine now exhausted and myself with it at the turn events had taken I bid the ladies farewell for the day and we voted to meet up on the following day when we would continue our exhillerating conversation.
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Geraldine Beigbeder and Elizabeth Reynaud in London, July 2013
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