Francophile's club

This year's Croisements festival will be held from May to July. Highlights include the exhibition From Monet to Soulages: Paths of Modern Western Painting (1805-1975), the dance production Seeds, the theater play 2666 and the recital performances by French actress Isabelle Huppert. [Photo provided to China Daily]

The evolution of French art from realism to modernity will be marked at a touring exhibition, titled From Monet to Soulages: Paths of Modern Western Painting (1805-1975), in Beijing, Chengdu and Wuhan. On show will be 51 paintings from the collection of the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Saint Etienne Metropole, sailing through impressionism, cubism, surrealism and abstract art.

Another exhibition, High Tension, will offer a glimpse into the vitality of French contemporary art by bringing together the works of eight winners of the Marcel Duchamp Prize, a high-profile French honor for artists, who show their critical approach to the advancement of technology and urban development.

Beijing will host a bulk of the events while important shows will also be held in Tianjin and other cities. The 12-hour play 2666 will be staged at the Tianjin Grand Theater over July 8-9. It is adapted from last novel of the same title of Chilean novelist Roberto Bolano (1953-2003).

Zhang Qing, the theater's program director, says she decided to bring the play to Tianjin after she saw it at last year's Avignon Festival, one of the world's leading contemporary performing arts festivals held annually in the French city of Avignon.