Jordan Roth Brings His West Village Apartment to Paris Art Week at Hôtel de Guise

Broadway producer Jordan Roth, known for backing Angels in America, The Book of Mormon, Kinky Boots, Hadestown and Moulin Rouge!, has installed his first functional design and performative sculpture project at the Hôtel de Guise in Paris. Titled "To Think of the Tranquil Life of Things," the exhibition is staged with Design Miami and Salon 94 Design and runs October 19–25 at 72 Rue de l'Université in the 7th Arrondissement. Rather than replicating his former West Village apartment, Roth distills the home and the 15 years he spent in it. Georges Perec's 1978 novel Life: A User's Manual, built around the interiors of a Paris apartment building, served as inspiration; the immediate trigger was Roth's departure from the apartment where his son was born. Furniture throughout the 18th-century hôtel particulier is draped in cloth printed with photo collages of Roth, shot by photographer Ben Hassett, showing the current Roth dressed in outfits he wore there while recalling earlier selves. The effect, the artist suggests, mirrors how recollection works neurologically — less direct recall than a memory of the latest revisitation. Installation views were photographed by August King.