La Maison Gainsbourg, the late artist’s former home, with a museum, will open on Sept 20, with tickets already on sale this month. Photo: AFP
The time capsule home of Serge Gainsbourg, one of France’s most loved – and notorious – singer-songwriters, is to finally open to the public on Sept 20. The house on Paris’ Left Bank has been a pilgrimage site for fans since the writer of Je T’Aime – affectionately known in France as “the man with the cauliflower head” – died in 1991.
The atmosphere has been immaculately preserved from the ashtrays still brimming with Gitanes cigarette butts to the baroque statues and multitude of instruments.
”Well, this is my house. I don’t know what it is: a sitting room, a music room, a brothel, a museum,” Serge said during a televised visit in April 1979.
Gainsbourg lived in the house in Paris from 1969. Photo: AFP
He lived in the house from 1969, initially with British-born actress Jane Birkin, with whom he sang Je T’Aime, which was banned in several countries because of its steamy lyrics. Their daughter, Antichrist star Charlotte Gainsbourg, a hugely successful actress and singer, said she was “very happy and touched” to announce the public opening.
“I hope to offer the public a unique experience that will maybe give a different way of appreciating his work,” she said in a statement recently. A museum across the road will also open, tracing his life and career, with a shop and piano-bar called Le Gainsbarre, after one of his alter egos.
Charlotte held back on the project for many years, and then it was delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic. ”It was all I had left of him, so I held on to it like a treasure,” she told AFP in 2021.
“But when I left for New York ... I had some distance and I understood that it had to be done – for the public, but also for my mental health. I need to let go. It needs to be a place of French heritage that is accessible.” – AFP
