Proof of registration, via a QR code on your phone or on paper, will be required to enter Reid Hall. Entry will be refused to those who are not registered. Please note that registering for a full day does not require attending all sessions.
This event will be held primarily in English, with some presentations in French. No simultaneous translation will be provided.
Hosted by the Columbia Global Paris Center, and organized in collaboration with the Associations L’AiR Arts and Cité Falguière as part of Montparnasse International initiative.
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This symposium marks the beginning of Montparnasse International, a community-initiated program designed to reaffirm the Montparnasse district as a historic epicenter for artistic creation and intercultural exchange.
Montparnasse has long been internationally recognized as a cradle of artistic production, renowned for the multicultural and heterogeneous avant-gardism that ignited at the dawn of the 20th century. French artists and global practitioners alike were drawn to the district by its reputation for creative innovation and radical freedom. Yet, despite its deep association with some of the century's most celebrated figures—including Brâncuși, Soutine, Zadkine, Foujita, Modigliani, Picasso and others—Montparnasse remains markedly under-examined and under-theorized as a holistic creative ecosystem.
While the first École de Paris (1905-1940) anchors the neighborhood's reputation and mythology, the artistic culture of Montparnasse continued to resonate into the postwar period, animated by figures such as Alberto Giacometti, Yves Klein, Niki de Saint Phalle, Agnès Varda, Frans Krajcberg and Claude de Soria. Today, the legacy of the École de Paris serves as a powerful historical model for cultural hospitality, at a time when the necessity of cross-cultural dialogue is more pressing than ever.
This symposium aims to unite currently disparate but interlinked strands of research—spanning art history, museum studies, cultural anthropology, disability studies, gender studies and queer theory—to initiate a long-term project decoding the complex creative ecosystem of Montparnasse, both past and present. In doing so, we seek to reexamine the relationship between Montparnassian creators and place, interrogating what made—and continues to make—this area a unique site of global creative fusion.
View the program schedule
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This event will take place in Reid Hall’s Grande Salle Ginsberg-LeClerc, built in 1912 and extensively renovated in 2023 thanks to the generous support of Judith Ginsberg and Paul LeClerc.
Reid Hall, the Columbia Global Paris Center, and the Institute for Ideas and Imagination are not responsible for the views and opinions expressed by their speakers and guests.
