Photos

Since 18th century, egyptomania keeps sustaining passion and interest amongst all countries and cultures. Mozart's Magic flute, Napoléon Bonaparte's scientific and military campaign, Boris Karloff camping a rather stiff and lame mummy towards an all-star horror hall of fame, Pei's glass pyramid in the Louvre (where a wonderful exhibition on this theme was also organized there too, about 10 years ago)... and countless more examples are a constant proof of this unrelenting fascination.

Last weekend, echoing the major exhibition at The Arab World Institute, the Pyramides métro station had been completely redecorated by some 50 students of the Ecole nationale des arts décoratifs.
For a few days (only), all poster ads had been covered with white and gold designs inspired by famous pharaohs of ancient Egypt, cut out to show the concrete wall underneath (including spray painted graffitis and visually puzzling remains of previous advertizings). Hieroglyphs were also painted on the white tiles.

But everything should be back to "normal" by now: garrish giant ads and spotlessly wiped earthenware walls.

Buy, buy, buy, buy! Christmas business as usual!
I can only hope that those two lovers will keep kissing each other and stay in their own world instead of rushing into the nearest store...

Lens distorsion correction, color temperature correction

PS On a more personal level, I remembered, right after posting this shot, that the action of a book I cowrote nearly 20 years ago took place under Akhenaton's reign (time really flies away, obviously)... But it hasn't been translated and published in English, so don't bother to look for it at Amazon or in a second-hand bookstore! *o)

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