2024: a year of coopexceptional cultural development

Announced in 2019 by Presidents Emmanuel Macron and Xi Jinping, this initiative strengthens cultural ties between the two countries and promotes France as a tourist destination in China – and vice versa.

Coordinated on the French side by the French Embassy in China, in conjunction with the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Economy, Finance and Industrial Sovereignty, the Franco-Chinese Year of Cultural Tourism aims to implement several objectives, namely:

• strengthen France’s attractiveness and promote the destination to the Chinese;
• highlight French tangible and intangible cultural heritage, the vitality of its artistic scene, its cultural and creative industries, its language and its lifestyle;
• promote French expertise in China for tourism and heritage purposes;
• boost Chinese tourism after the health crisis and ensure its better distribution throughout France.

The program of many major cultural events that will run throughout the year, in France and China, giving rise to a program of excellence for the general French and Chinese public.

In China, the inauguration of the event is held on January 5 on the occasion of the opening of the Festival of Sculpture on ice and snow of Harbin, putting France in the spotlight with in particular the reproduction of the cathedral Notre-DameDame de Paris carved in ice on a very large scale, while the inauguration in France will take place on January 31 on the occasion of a large concert given at Versailles by the Traditional National Orchestra of China and the Orchestra of the Royal Opera of the Palace of Versailles.

Excellent programming in France and China

Opening ceremonyOpening of the Franco-Chinese Year of Cultural Tourism

January 5 at the Harbin Ice and Snow Festival

 The Franco-Chinese Year of Cultural Tourism will be launched on January 5 at the Harbin Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival. Two ice sculptures, reproductions of Notre-Dame de Paris and the Temple of Heaven, two UNESCO World Heritage sites, will stand side by side and illuminate the festival park in an exceptional Franco-Chinese setting.

Representation de Romeo and Juliet

January 25 at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing

Charles Gounod’s opera Romeo and Juliet will be performed on January 25 at the National Center for the Performing Arts (NCPA) in Beijing. This French and Chinese distribution show will launch the celebrations of the 60th anniversary of France-China diplomatic relations and mark the first event of the Franco-Chinese Year of Cultural Tourism in Beijing. It will be conducted by the great Chinese conductor and pianist XU Zhong, in the presence of French singers Thomas Bettinger (tenor), Nicolas Testé (baritone-bass) and Alexandre Duhamel (baritone).

 The Pal ExhibitionNapoleon’s missing Ais”

- March 29 to June 20 at Meet you museum, Beijing
- July 5 to October 7 Meet you museum, Shanghai

Presented and designed by the Mobilier national, the exhibition «The Disappeared Palaces of Napoleon» focuses on the Tuileries, Saint-Cloud and Meudon Palaces (all three destroyed today) and the furnishings of the time of Napoleon Bonaparte, first consul of the Republic then emperor of the French in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. The objects on display will be ceremonial furniture, art objects and decorative elements of the time.

Exhibition “Towardsailles and the Forbidden City, exchanges between France and China in the 18th century.”

April 1 to June 30 at the Palace Museum in the Forbidden City, Beijing

The Palace of Versailles co-organizes with the Museum of the Imperial Palace at the Forbidden City an exhibition devoted to exchanges between the French and Chinese courts during the second half of the seventeenth century and the eighteenth century, and the history of extensive exchanges between the two countries in the fields of science, technology and art during the same period.

At the same time, the Orchestra of the Royal Opera of Versailles will perform a concert tour in several cities in China.

Time Keepers Facility

April to December at the National Museum of Asian Arts - Guimet

In the spring, Chinese designer Jiang Qiong-er will transform the facades of the Place d'Iéna Museum, which she will anchor in Chinese culture and invest several emblematic spaces of the building, from the entrance hall to the roof-topterrace through the historical library or the 4th floor rotunda, for visual and olfactory experiences that will transport visitors to the Middle Kingdom.

Ball Tourand the Opéra national de Bordeaux

15 April to 20 May in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Nanjing and from October in France

The Opéra National de Bordeaux and the company Wu Promotion announce a major tour in China of the Ballet de l'Opéra national de Bordeaux in four Chinese cities to present «La Sylphide», work of the romantic ballet created at the Paris Opera in 1832, and the third act of Don Quixote, a ballet inspired by Cervantes' novel.

In a second time, the Jiangsu Performing Arts Group (Troupe nationale d'opéra traditionnelle du Jiangsu) is invited in October in Paris, at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées, then at the Opéra de Bordeaux for several performances of the famous opera KunQu «Le Pavillon aux pivoines» created in 1598 by Tang Xianzu.

Exhibition «At the heart of colour. Masterpieces of Chinese monochrome porcelain (8th-18th century)»

June 12 to September 16 at the Musée national des arts asiatiques - Guimet

Search for perfection, mastery of colors and quest for purity: an exceptional exhibition that traces ten centuries of creation in China. From the extraordinary Zhuyuetang collection of Richard Kan and that of the Guimet Museum, 250 masterpieces illustrate the Chinese taste for formal simplicity and purity of colors, from centuries of refinement, giving rise to unique pieces of great aesthetic finesse.

Exhibition «The Gold of the Ming. Splendour and Beauty of Imperial China (14th-17th century)»

September 18 to January 13, 2025 at the Musée national des arts asiatiques - Guimet

How can you look good under the Ming? On the occasion of an exceptional cooperation with the Qujiang Museum of Xi'an, the Guimet Museum presents an exceptional set of gold objects, bringing together ornaments, jewelry and decorative objects, inlaid with jade or precious stones. These pieces illustrate the perfect mastery of the art of imperial goldsmithing during the Ming dynasty.

Collective exhibition on the contemporary Chinese scene

October 9 to February 3, 2025 at the Centre Pompidou

The exhibition brings together the works of 21 artists born between the late 1970s and early 1990s, a generation that grew during the period of openness and reforms that followed the Mao era, characterized by international openness, strong economic growth and major technological and social developments.

The exhibition highlights some recurring themes and themes in the practices of these artists. Thus, the issues related to China’s participation in the world, the major evolutions of Chinese society, and in particular the incessant transformations of lifestyles in urban agglomerations, the relationship to a prestigious cultural and aesthetic tradition, and the omnipresence of new technologies are at the heart of the influences and research of these artists.

Exhibition «Le Chic! French decorative arts and furniture»

from 11 November at Bund 33 in Shanghai

The Mobilier national will present the exhibition «Le Chic! Arts décoratifs et mobiliers français» in Shanghai, in the prestigious setting of Bund 33. Co-organized with Hantang Culture, the exhibition will unveil works from the Mobilier national collection that bear witness to 19th century Art Deco and represent French chic.

Exhibition «Chang'an, resplendent capital of the Tang Empire (7th-10th century)»

November 20 to March 3, 2025 at the Musée national des arts asiatiques - Guimet

With the support of Art Exhibitions China, an unprecedented visit to the heart of Chang'an, the glorious and cosmopolitan capital of the Tang Dynasty. Cultural and commercial crossroads of the Silk Roads, this sprawling city is the largest city in the world in the 8th century. More than 200 exceptional works of art, lent by many museums of the Chinese provinces invite to discover this city of wonders, visited by thousands of merchants, pilgrims, scholars, musicians, artists, craftsmen and aristocrats of the court, from all over the empire and beyond.