A tribute to my father, Serge Gainsbourg

Behind the discreet door of 5 bis Rue de Verneuil lies the house that was once Serge Gainsbourg’s Parisian pied-à-terre. “I don’t know if it’s a studio, a museum, a salon or a brothel,” Gainsbourg once said of the space. Surprisingly confined, it’s packed to the gills, and the enclosed atmosphere is amplified by the intense black felt walls. Every aspect has been meticulously maintained in the exact position it was in on the day of Gainsbourg’s death in 1991.

“It was almost an obsession to preserve and keep everything as it was,” says his daughter Charlotte Gainsbourg, who was 19 at the time. Charlotte lived in the 5a until she was nine, with her mother, Jane Birkin, and her half-sister Kate, before her parents separated: Gainsburg She got together with Bambou and had her brother Lucien. (Gainsbourg also had two older children with his second wife, Françoise Pancrazzi). “When my father passed away, I grieved for him very intensely,” he continues. “I requested that they embalm him. I wasn’t very lucid at the time, and maybe it wasn’t a healthy choice, but at least it allowed me to have a few more days with him. Everything associated with him became sacred, even a package of Gitanes or a piece of paper he had scribbled on. It was my way of pretending he wasn’t gone; to preserve things. Today, when I look at his house, frozen in time, I feel like it is still there.”

In the closet, Gainsbourg’s white leather Zizi Oxfords, the Repetto shoe model that became his signature, still bear the marks of his toes. In the kitchen, hot sauces, Angostura bitters and Worcestershire sauce line the shelves. On the nightstand, next to the low bed covered in black mink, a wall of mirrors with floral cabochons and a nude by Jeanloup Sieff, you can still find a package of Smarties, Stimorol gum and aniseed candies.

Its great contradictions were what made its charm.

Next week, Charlotte will open the house to the public as part of Gainsbourg House, the first cultural institution dedicated to the artist. The property, which once hid all the artist’s tastes and fetishes, is now here for all to see. It’s a gateway, Charlotte says, to understanding his legacy. “I want it to be an experience, a powerful moment, like watching a movie. “My father has already shared what he wants us to know about him, so I hope this house evokes the emotion of knowing where he lived.”

The project, which has had the support of Saint Laurent and its creative director, Anthony Vaccarello, also has a second entity, also located on Rue de Verneuil. If the 5 bis allows you to delve deeper into the man’s intimate life, the Gainsbourg Museum at number 14 is a more formal arrangement, containing more than 450 photographs, objects, manuscripts, clothing, press clippings and records, brought together to narrate the career Gainsbourg art.

For his fans, Serge Gainsbourg is remembered not only as the greatest French musician of the 20th century, but also as a pop culture icon. For his detractors, he is a crude provocateur. His 16 studio albums have 12 gold records, five double gold records and six platinum records; “Je t’aime… moi non plus” alone sold more than a million copies, fueled by the controversy surrounding Jane Birkin’s orgasmic moans. He recorded the duet “Lemon Incest” – “The love we will never make together / It is the most beautiful, the rarest, the most disconcerting / The purest, the most intoxicating” – with Charlotte when he was just 13 years old. language, in which languages ​​intermingle, phrases seem cut with a scalpel and words have a double meaning, he revealed himself as one of the most modern poets of France. He also trained as a painter and in the 1970s became a filmmaker (sometimes disconcertingly directing his flamboyant alter ego, Gainsbarre). Despite everything, his inimitable, disobedient and disheveled elegance became his own artistic statement. Levi’s shirts open to his waist; the (women’s) jacket he found at the Portobello market in 1973: form-fitting and tennis striped.

“His great contradictions were what made his charm,” says Charlotte, speaking in French, the best way, according to her, to express her feelings towards her father. “The contradiction between beauty and ugliness, of which he always felt self-conscious. This contradiction between the extremely rude and funny side of him, and the infinitely shy side of him. I don’t see this in anyone else. That’s what I also read in his style, in a way. He had a grace in his mannerisms that I still remember vividly.”

All this is manifested within 5 bis. In the living room, next to a bronze cast of Jane Birkin’s bust, are countless monkeys (some of which contain hidden bottles of whiskey and cognac) and a playful, irreverent collection of police medals that she kept as souvenirs. Her study, complete with his 19th-century dentist’s chair, reveals his taste for 19th-century authors, from Baudelaire to Edgar Allan Poe. Novels with a single character stand out, such as The Portrait of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde or À rebours by Huysmans, treatises on surrealism, novels related to eroticism, but also works of pop culture, such as biographies and cocktail books. In the hallways it sparks controversy: Photographs of Marilyn Monroe include one taken at the Los Angeles County morgue, while press clippings document the scandal surrounding her 1979 reggae version of the French national anthem “La Marseillaise.” The larger-than-life portraits of Brigitte Bardot, his ex-girlfriend, serve as an ironic homage to the concept of the perfect blonde.

The bedroom, until now known only to his wives, his children and the women who shared his bed, exudes eroticism and unapologetic glamour: a baroque mermaid bench thought to come from a brothel or a theater, while soft lighting projected by a thin takis sculpture, Light signal.

As expected, Charlotte was initially hesitant about opening the dorm to the public. We’re talking a few weeks after your mother Jane BirkinHer death, and his pain remains extremely raw. Although it is “something intimate,” she says, “I hope [the house] It will surprise people and they will feel the magic. I don’t feel like I’m putting people in a voyeuristic position. There was no point in opening this place and keeping part of it a secret.”

Her mother, who was the subject of her daughter’s 2021 documentary. Charlotte Jane – supported the project. “She understood how complicated it was for me to put this museum together,” says Charlotte. “She had a lot of empathy for everything that was going on.” But her support had limits. “Every time I told her that she should be part of this, for example, creating an audio tour of the house. [eventually narrated by Charlotte] – she seemed to resist. It was too much effort for her to go there, especially towards the end of her life. I showed him progress photos; She made small comments to me, she made suggestions, but she didn’t want to confront him. “This house represented a world too far away for her and did not necessarily provide her with comfort.”

The Gainsbourg Museum has been designed by Jacques García. He interiors Reflect the Gainsbourg house: from the felt walls to the Venetian checkerboard floor tiles. The basement, reminiscent of the dark jazz bars of Saint-Germain, will be dedicated to temporary exhibitions: the first will be Je t’aime… moi non plus. “Our goal was to create a space that felt like an extension of 5 bis, but also authentically present Gainsbourg’s life and work,” says Anatole Maggiar, co-curator of the institution.

Notable pieces include the handwritten lyrics to “La Javanaise,” which Gainsbourg wrote for singer Juliette Gréco; the 1965 Eurovision medal for “Poupée de cire, poupée de son”; an acetate containing the first recordings of “Je t’aime… moi non plus” (Bardot’s original version), magazine covers with Jane Birkin and a note from Gainsbourg that says: “Everyone loves my wife.”

Charlotte took a backseat to the museum project. “Sometimes I learn things about him and it bothers me; It’s a complicated relationship,” she says. “When the museum project began, the people involved began to do real archeology work… and I wanted to continue being her daughter.

“I have a role that seems delicate to me. There is a part of me that is very proud and another part that makes me ask, ‘What is my place here?’ It’s like I still want to be connected to this place, but at the same time it’s not mine anymore,” she concludes. “If my father, in some way, was able to see this project come true, I hope he understands how much I love him and how much all these people who participated in this effort love him. It was a big surprise to see how crazy people are about him. And I imagine it might have been the same for him too.”

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