Cover image: Fondation-Giacometti image for James Baldwin Study Day
Screenshot from Fondation-Giacometti Website

On February 7, 2025, the Giacometti Foundation will host a James Baldwin Study Day at the Institut Giacometti in the 14th arrondissement.

It is entitled Rencontres artistiques : James Baldwin en France (Artistic Encounters: James Baldwin in France).

The foundation has created this day to open research on the richness of artistic exchanges around Baldwin in France.  It will bring together art historians and Baldwin scholars who will comment upon Baldwin's little known writings about the plastic arts.

Admission is free.

Being invited to this event immediately caused me to think about the fabulous James Baldwin Centennial Festival hosted in Paris by La Maison Baldwin last September.

(Read an extensive article about the entire festival HERE and ETBP's article about the festival gala HERE.)

It also inspired me to look at what else has transpired in Paris to honor Baldwin during the first six months of this special year.

Radio France

On August 2, 2024, Radio France's Les Midis de Culture broadcast a 44-minute conversation called "Il aurait eu cent ans: pourquoi faut-il (re)lire James Baldwin?" ("He would have been 100 years old; why is it necessary to (re)read James Baldwin?")

Speaking were writer/novelist Léonora Miano and professor Yannick M. Blec.

RFI

Radio France Internationale published an article honoring Baldwin on August 3, 2024.  It encouraged readers to seek out five specific Baldwin titles to "redécouvrir la puissance et l’universalité de son œuvre singulière" (to rediscover the power and universality of his singular work):

• Go Tell It on the Mountain
• Giovanni's Room
• If Beale Street Could Talk
• The Fire Next Time
• The Cross of Redemption

On August 23, the station also interviewed Professor Blec about his newly published biography of Baldwin (see below).

Librairie Libertalia

The Libertalia bookstore in the Paris suburb of Montreuil welcomed Professor Blec on the evening of September 6, 2024 to celebrate the publication of Blec's James Baldwin biography.

James Baldwin by Yannick M. Blec
Image of book cover

American University of Paris

The American University of Paris hosted the art exhibition entitled Frontline Prophet:  James Baldwin from September 6-30, 2024.

In 2016, the university hosted a symposium on Baldwin entitled "A Language to Dwell in."  Artist Sabrina Nelson attended that symposium and created a sketch of Baldwin during a presentation by poet Jessica Care Moore.  This was the beginning of Nelson's calling to create the traveling exhibition that "came home" to Paris last fall.

Works from Frontline Prophet at the American University of Paris
© Entrée to Black Paris

La Maison de la Poésie

For last year's Festival des toutes lettres (a Paris literary festival), La Maison de la Poésie hosted "James Baldwin by Dany Laferrière in dialogue with Simon Njami" on November 15, 2024.

Haitian-Canadian writer Dany Laferrière and Camaroonian writer, independent curator, art critic and lecturer Simon Njami talked about Baldwin on camera in front of a live audience for just under an hour.  The video and accompanying transcript (in French) are available for viewing/reading on YouTube.

Maison de l'Amérique Latine

On December 17, 2024, La Maison de l'Amérique Latine welcomed Sophie Haluk, journalist and musician who has written an extensive biography called James Baldwin, L'Insaissable (The Elusive James Baldwin).  Haluk's book focuses extensively on Baldwin's life in Saint-Paul-de-Vence.

James Baldwin, L'insaissable by Sophie Haluk
Image of book cover