Donald Trump signs travel ban on 12 countries
Finally, in Burundi, Parliamentary elections were held on thursday. The ruling party was expected to win as it didn't face much opposition, with many rival political figures not being allowed to run. Amidst the tension, some of the boldest voices have come from the Catholic Church.
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LeMonde
27 minutes ago
- LeMonde
Outsider art: Two African artists somewhat lost amid the vast Decharme collection in Paris
One Beninese and one Angolan: These were the only African artists represented – among the 156 men and women – at the Grand Palais in Paris for the exhibition "Art brut. The Decharme donation to the Centre Pompidou". Eight works (four by each artist) out of the 402 on display through September 21. "Outsider art is outsider art and everyone understands that perfectly well," said painter Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985) in 1947, who coined the term and amassed a significant collection. This movement does not belong to the fine arts, nor is it necessarily shown in the usual venues dedicated to artistic creation, such as art schools or studios. It escapes artistic movements and stylistic influences. It refuses to be boxed into any category and resists all attempts at definition. It exists "elsewhere." Ezekiel Messou was born in Benin in 1971. A less-than-diligent student, he fled an authoritarian father – a significant religious figure in his village – and settled in Nigeria at age 16. From 1990 to 1995 in Lagos, he learned to repair sewing machines. Upon returning to Benin, he continued to live and work in Abomey, a city in the south of the country, where he opened his own sewing machine repair shop. 'Solitary prophets' In the back room, on school notebooks and A4 sheets of paper, he cataloged models of sewing machines. His early drawings took on the rigid style of technical diagrams. Gradually, Ezekiel Messou adopted representations reminiscent of a bestiary with plant-like curves. Once the drawing was finished, he stamped it with his workshop seal, "E ts qui sait l'avenir. Le Machinistre" ("Est. who knows the future. The Machinistre"), which, according to him, certified his authorship. A form of copyright: "No one can steal my drawings." For Bruno Decharme, collector, filmmaker, and co-curator of the exhibition, "Many outsider artists are outcasts, exiled in a psychic reality splattered with stars, who feel invested with a secret mission. Solitary prophets, strangers to the art world and its teachings, outside the norm, they accumulate, decipher, draw, build, and organize a universe whose geography, structure, and forms they invent." For him, outsider art is "a kind of toolbox, a useful notion for looking where art history has rarely chosen to look. Observing the ever-evolving margins from which the most inventive works of these uniquely styled artists emerge." The defining moment came in 1976, with the discovery of the collection donated to the city of Lausanne by Dubuffet, who began his "prospecting" in Swiss psychiatric hospitals in 1945. At that time, Decharme was studying philosophy, with professors including Gilles Deleuze and Michel Foucault, as well as psychoanalysts Jacques Lacan and Félix Guattari, who "at that time, were deconstructing the structures of Western societies, decoding and challenging ideological norms." 'A savage freedom' He emphasized: "I found in the works of outsider art artistic answers to questions I had explored in philosophy – a relationship to otherness, but also to mystery and the unseen. These works, which bear witness to a savage freedom, profoundly changed my life." So why are there so few works by African artists? Primarily present in Western societies, which have developed a reflection on the margins, and the concepts of dissent or even madness, outsider art in Africa "probably corresponds to different notions than those found in our ways of thinking," explained Decharme. "But that does not mean that these cultures lack artistic expressions bearing witness to otherness. To discover them, it seems to me that we would need to conduct explorations using a different interpretative framework. Research is therefore complex." The second African artist represented at the Grand Palais comes from Angola: anonymous, nothing is known about his life. His four drawings were created on the back of medical forms and were discovered in a village in Angola before being acquired by the French gallerist, collector, and art dealer Charles Ratton (1895-1986). On December 10, 1944, Dubuffet visited him and was captivated by these delicate works. He acquired one, possibly two, for the outsider art collection he was just beginning to assemble. The exhibition is designed as a gigantic kaleidoscope. From space to space – "Réparer le monde" ("Repairing the World"), "De l'ordre, nom de Dieu !" ("Order, for God's sake!") "Autour du monde" ("Around the world"), "Chimères, monstres et fantômes," ("Chimeras, monsters and ghosts"), "Danse avec les esprits" ("Dancing with spirits"), "Epopées célestes" ("Celestial epics") and more – visitors are invited to enter each artistic universe. A video feature in each section highlights the importance of these themes and recounts the meeting of the two curators (Decharme and Barbara Safarova, essayist, lecturer at the Ecole du Louvre, and researcher) with certain artists, like a travel diary. In 2021, Decharme, whose collection numbers over 6,000 works, donated 1,000 of them – produced by 242 artists – to the Centre Pompidou, thus contributing to the creation of an outsider art department previously lacking at the Musée national d'art moderne. " Art brut. The Decharme donation to the Centre Pompidou" at the Grand Palais, Avenue Winston-Churchill, 75008 Paris (the exhibition entrance is on the right when facing the building's main façade). Through September 21, 2025. Art brut, exhibition catalog (304 pages and 650 illustrations + 2 inserts for chronology and biographies, co-published by Grand Palais RMN/Centre Pompidou, €45).
Euronews
13 hours ago
- Euronews
Trump administration unveils plan to charge visa security deposit
In the latest in a series of anti-immigration policies, the Trump administration has announced a pilot measure to require some visa applicants to put down a $15,000 (€12,901) deposit. The decision, published in the Federal Register on Tuesday, will be tested for a year starting 20 August and aims to ensure that visitors adhere to the legally prescribed length of stay. According to the US State Department, the bond will only be refunded after the visa holder leaves the US and their visa expires. The US State Department has said the pilot will so far include Zambia and Malawi. It has made it clear that the measure will apply to "nationals of countries with high overstay rates" or those that raise suspicions due to the lack of reliable monitoring systems. The decision covers both tourist and business visas. Tougher measures against African countries According to US administration figures, more than 500,000 people overstayed their visas in 2023. In the context of tightening visa requirements, Trump has announced decisions in recent months that have particularly targeted a number of African countries. The measure comes as the US, along with Canada and Mexico, prepares to host the FIFA World Cup in the summer of 2026, followed by the Olympic Games in San Francisco in 2028. The decision has sparked concern on social media about the ability of athletes, especially from Africa, to participate in these major events. Around forty countries, mostly European, still benefit from the Visa Waiver Programme, which allows their nationals to stay in the US for up to 90 days without the need for a visa. There are no African countries on the list, while Qatar is the only Middle Eastern country included in the programme.
Fashion Network
3 days ago
- Fashion Network
Gwyneth Paltrow has always been selling what money can't buy
Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, Gwyneth Paltrow was the platonic ideal of the It Girl and Hollywood nepo-baby, dating Brad Pitt and Ben Affleck and winning the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Shakespeare in Love. Then, in 2008, Paltrow engineered a career detour nobody quite saw coming: She launched a website and free weekly newsletter recommending her favourite restaurants, travel destinations, luxury hotels, fashion boutiques and day spas- a Gwyneth Hot List, you could say. Thus was the birth of Goop, a trailblazing platform in wellness, style and beauty that in less than a decade grew into a sprawling media and e-commerce enterprise. It has, at various times, sold clothing, beauty products, vibrators, homeware (including a headline-making vagina-scented candle) and a meal delivery service, and produced travel guides, cookbooks, a newsletter, a podcast, conferences and a Netflix series. Built on Paltrow's 'beauty, charm and pedigree,' Goop became 'the authority on what we put in our bodies (supplements), how we treat our bodies (sleep, detoxes and exercise), and what we put on our bodies (serums and creams),' writes journalist Amy Odell in her new book, Gwyneth: The Biography, published by Gallery Books this week. Paltrow gave wellness a narrative, and a beautiful, tasteful aesthetic. She repositioned it as a luxury, and showed that it could be monetised beyond charging for facials, massages and beauty products. She spearheaded the transformation of what was known as the 'global spa economy' into Big Wellness, a 6.3 trillion dollar global industry rooted in pseudoscience and specious health claims. Along the way, Odell writes, Paltrow became 'one of the biggest and most polarising cultural influencers of the 21st century.' In Gwyneth, which is based on more than 220 interviews with Paltrow's childhood pals, film colleagues, close friends and former Goop employees, Odell shows how Paltrow 'helped bring the wellness movement and alternative medicine into the mainstream — to the horror of doctors and academics,' who regularly debunked Goop's declarations in print and on camera. For a long time, both Paltrow and Goop were able to slough off the medical community's criticism like so many dead skin cells, because the brand's customers would buy what she was selling no matter what. Paltrow was Goop's superpower: the company's founder, chief executive and ambassador, who claimed to practice what it preached, and embodied all that it promised. Paltrow connected to her customers and subscribers with her 'straight dope' talk — one of her Goop Gift Guides, for example, was called 'Ridiculous but Awesome,' and she told her 'goopies' that she likes her wrinkles — and assured them that if they bought her message, and the products she hawked on Goop, they could live, and even look, like her. As Odell posits, Paltrow used her fame 'to commodify her taste and lifestyle, and sell it back to us, even though her life is the very definition of something money can't buy.' At the same time, in the business community, the former It Girl came across as the ultimate zeitgeist channeler, able to swiftly adapt to cultural shifts and bail on initiatives that didn't work. She refashioned herself as the Oprah Winfrey and Martha Stewart of the clean living space, creating a new template for celebrity entrepreneurs, such as the Kardashian/Jenners, Rihanna and Hailey Bieber, to follow. With Goop, Odell writes that Paltrow gave 'a master class in commanding the attention economy that now rules culture.' (Her appearance in a video this week as a 'temporary spokesperson' for Astronomer, the company at the centre of the Coldplay kiss-cam scandal, only underscores this point.) But all was not well at the wellness brand. Employing the same dogged reporting she brought to Anna: The Biography, her 2022 bestseller on long-time Vogue editor Anna Wintour, Odell discovers that under the veneer of quiet perfection and rarified taste, Paltrow's erratic, aloof and, at times, wicked behaviour created a toxic work environment of epic proportions. What was seen from the outside as flexibility and adaptability was, in fact, Paltrow's dizzyingly short attention span, resulting in zig-zag decisions that confounded and exhausted employees. Her queenly demands — like having her test-kitchen chef prepare her lunch daily, and expecting employees to respond to her internal communications instantly — further alienated the people who worked for her. When her orders or standards were not met, she'd turn snippy and cold. 'I can be mean,' Paltrow has admitted. 'I can ice people out.' Perhaps not surprisingly, Goop burned through staff. While Goop churned internally, its outward appearance largely remained as flawless and smooth as Paltrow's complexion. She'd meet with potential investors, and, by expertly playing the role of a steady, hands-on chief executive, convince them to give her millions for Goop. She'd pose for selfies, too, which no doubt helped seal the deals. Odell reports in the book that in 2018, Goop was valued at an astounding 250 million dollars. Yet, she writes, it has never experienced sustained profitability. As Paltrow's father, the director and producer Bruce Paltrow, once told her about the difference between the public perception of her and her true self: 'You've got the whole country fooled.' Until she didn't. Eventually, government authorities cracked down on Goop for spurious health claims regarding products it sold on its site. Like the Egg, an ovum-shaped stone in jade or rose quartz that Goop expert Shiva Rose recommended inserting in the vagina to 'increase orgasm' and 'invigorate our life force.' The medical community condemned the Egg, warning it could lead to bacterial vaginosis or toxic shock syndrome. California district attorneys sued Goop over its unproven statements, and the company was fined. The site continued to sell the Egg without those claims. Once it became clear that Goop was not the unicorn that investors initially thought it would be, they began to turn away. They weren't the only ones. Though the wellness industry is booming — it is expected to reach 9 trillion dollars worldwide by 2028, and the full-throated embrace of supplements and 'doing your own research' has become official US policy under Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — Goop's business has stagnated. Last year, the newsletter Puck reported that Goop sales have been flat since 2021, and, in 2024, the company laid off about one fifth of its 216-person workforce, including several employees in the content department. As a result, the site has significantly reduced its editorial component, and amped up e-commerce. And Odell reports that there is talk inhouse of selling the company. (Paltrow did say in a March 2025 interview that she's 'not thinking about an exit right now.') Is it worth anything without Paltrow? She is the reason most consumers patronise Goop. Will she stay? Hard to say, though her commitment to the company is clearly less ardent than it once was. She's spoken publicly about wanting to slow down and the toll that being a CEO has taken, and she has pivoted back to film full time, with two new movies out later this year, including one with Timothée Chalamet. Which begs the question: Who does Gwyneth Paltrow really want to be: America's Sweetheart? An It Girl? Influencer? Entrepreneur? Tycoon? Maybe, as with her film career, all have simply been roles, and once she plays them, she moves on. Despite Goop's longevity, Paltrow still defies comparison. She's not, after all, very much like Oprah or Martha. (They both made billions.) And she's not much like the Kardashians either — her Beverly-Hills-by-way-of-Spence sangfroid means she's never been accused of vulgarity or dismissed as 'famous only for being famous.' What's certain is this: Whatever she does next, we'll be paying close attention.
