The announcement is “mouth-watering”: the Maison Gainsbourg, the mythical Parisian home of Serge Gainsbourg and a dedicated museum on the sidewalk opposite, opens on September 20, announced his daughter, Charlotte Gainsbourg, on April 2. It’s the end of a soap opera of more than 30 years. “It’s the house where he composed a lot of his songs, he wrote his lyrics, his screenplays… It was also my childhood home, where I grew up,” confides Charlotte Gainsbourg to our microphone.
Since his disappearance in 1991, fans of “the man with the head of cabbage” go on pilgrimage to 5 bis rue de Verneuil in Paris (VII arrondissement). And dream of entering to discover the incredible interior and its astronomical quantity of musical instruments, souvenirs and trinkets arranged by the singer-songwriter.
“Here, this is my home. I don’t know what it is: a sitting-room, a music room, a brothel, a museum…”, described Serge Gainsbourg, in April 1979, in the television program “The Alex Reed of Thursday”.
“We also see the house of someone who was actually rather modest, because it was very small. All the rooms are decorated with an aesthetic care that resembles him. Besides, I’m not sure that in listening to his music, we inevitably get this idea of his interior”, adds Charlotte Gainsbourg to our microphone.
The place, photographed during the lifetime of the artist and the mythical couple he formed with Jane Birkin, has entered the collective imagination. Louise Verneuil, a musician from the emerging French scene, chose her alias in reference to this address.
Charlotte Gainsbourg, actress and singer, therefore put an end to the suspense on Sunday, “very happy and touched to announce the opening of Maison Gainsbourg“September 20, in a press release sent to AFP. The course”will begin with a visit to the House (5 bis rue de Verneuil), a dive into the intimate“, continues the artist. “Then a stone’s throw away, the Museum (14 rue de Verneuil) will retrace my father’s life through his works and his collection of emblematic pieces..
“Like a treasure”
Charlotte Gainsbourg “hopes to offer the public a special experience, which will perhaps give a new look to his work. An experience if possible at the height of what he left us”. Serge Gainsbourg lived for 22 years at 5 bis, whose interior “has remained intact since its disappearance in 1991“, still write the persons in charge of the place. The number 14, in addition to a museum “retracing the life and career of the artist“, propose to “a bookstore-boutique and the Gainsbarre, café and piano bar”.
The date of this communication is not chosen at random: Sunday April 2 marked the 95th anniversary of the birth of Serge Gainsbourg. It was a long journey to reach an opening to the public. “In the first ten years, when I was most sure of the project, it was very complicated to bring it to fruition. And then I backtracked because that was kind of what I had left of him, so I kept him like a treasure.“, told AFP Charlotte Gainsbourg, in 2021, the year of the 30th anniversary of the disappearance of her father.
“But when I left for New York — now I’m back in Paris — I took some distance and I understood that it had to be done”she added.
“Very arranged brothel”
This house, “it’s him, his personality, it’s quite surprising”, she said once more. The title “L’hôtel Particulier”, on the legendary album “Histoire de Melody Nelson”, is inspired by the place.
“At the time of my mother (Jane Birkin), there were few things. Then followingwards, there were more and more very arranged brothels (laughs). He transformed that during his lifetime into a museum full of objects, it was difficult to walk without being afraid of breaking something”. She particularly remembered“a bust of (his) mother”. “It’s a cast of his body, it’s very, very beautiful. At first it was in plaster, then he redid it in bronze”.
The Maison Gainsbourg expects to welcome nearly 100,000 visitors a year and will also offer, according to its managers, “cultural programming in situ, digital and outside the walls”.
The ticket office opens from Tuesday April 4, exclusively online (maisongainsbourg.fr). First tickets available for reservations from September to December 2023.
