Meet Culturez-vous

The cultural media run by Antoine Vitek

Meet Culturez-vous - illustration 1

Photograph of Antoine Vitek © Antoine Vitek

Since 2012, Antoine Vitek has been feeding us with recommendations for cultural outings. From exhibitions, explorations of heritage, to travel and gastronomy, Artsper got to know the man behind Culturez-vous, a platform that opens your appetite to the world of culture!

1. Hello Antoine! Can you introduce yourself and tell us what led you to create Culturez-vous?

Hello Artsper! I'm a thirty year old Parisian with a passion for culture: I love discovering our heritage, its history...

I didn't study art history but I've always been attracted to beautiful things. I created Culturez-vous 10 years ago, while working as a Digital Manager in an anti-fraud e-commerce company (which had nothing to do with culture!) to share my favorite discoveries and to try to make culture more accessible.

Over the years, Culturez-vous has grown, so much so that this passion project has become my main activity for a little over 2 years.

2. How would you define Culturez-vous in a few words?

Culturez-vous is a website that currently contains nearly 1,500 articles. Over the years, it has become a sort of database for cultural tips!

It's also a community, since more than 320,000 people follow Culturez-vous on social networks, where I try to bring a dose of culture every day. I talk about exhibitions, the history of monuments, music, travel, live shows, sometimes also gastronomy... Everything depends on my latest favorite discoveries.

3. Your blog takes us on a journey while stimulating our senses: you invite us to read, listen, taste and travel. What is your favorite sense and why?

My saying is that "curiosity is only a defect for those who lack it". I've always been interested in a multitude of things, which is why my content covers a wide range of subjects.

But if I had to keep only one sense, I would say sight. The image is often the first way to experience art— it is by seeing the beauty of a monument or a work online that makes us want to see them in real life. I love photography, which I practice almost daily to create content, but also for real pleasure. It's my way of trying to take an attentive look at heritage or art.

Meet Culturez-vous - illustration 1
Meet Culturez-vous - illustration 1

On the left: screenshot of Culturez-vous' Instagram feed, on the right: photograph of Abbaye du Val-de-Grâce in Paris © Antoine Vitek

4. You seem to be everywhere all at once, we find your recommendations all over France, and even across Europe... Who is Culturez-vous for: the Parisian looking for adventure? Or on the contrary, are you trying to talk to everyone?

Since I live in Paris, my reports are often set in the capital and I regularly give advice and cultural tips for Parisians. However, I travel a lot and often publish travel guides in France or abroad, or focus on museums and exhibitions outside of Paris.

Only 30% of my readers live in the Paris area. My travel guides, my playlists and my content on monuments are of course aimed at everyone. For the past few years, I have also published most of my articles in English, which means that 15% of my readers are English-speaking: culture has no borders!

5. How do you select the recommendations you share with your community?

My content is a reflection of my visits. The selection is made randomly from my travels or my strolls in Paris! There remain many posts on heritage through castles, monuments and crafts, because it is what attracts me the most.

I also collaborate with cultural places or tourist destinations that order content from me, so the choice of subjects is sometimes influenced by these partnerships. On the other hand, I am lucky enough today to be able to choose the institutions I work with, which allows me to put aside the themes I have the least affinity with or to discard subjects I would not want to recommend to my community.

6. Culturez-vous has been around since 2012. What big changes have you seen in the last 10 years, both in culture and in the ways you share your content?

Many things have changed in the last 10 years. Museums have been able to transform themselves: they sometimes keep this dusty image that sticks to them, yet it is no longer justified! Today, exhibition scenographies are modern and attractive; digital devices have added an additional richness to visits; and social networks also allow for a closer link with institutions.

On social networks, there have also been many changes. The arrival of Instagram and then TikTok has completely changed the way I share my content, with an ever-increasing emphasis on images. The confinement has also encouraged many internet users to talk about culture online to compensate for the closing of museums.

The other side of the coin is that the tendency to scroll endlessly on social networks sometimes drags down the quality of published content. However, social networks do not mean the death of "traditional" websites: my blog's traffic has tripled in three years. Written and "rich" content are fortunately not dead yet!

7. We can now find Culturez-vous on TikTok. Do you think that TikTok has become an indispensable social network to share - and discover - good cultural tips?

TikTok has more and more subscribers, so you have to be there if you want to reach this audience. However, it's good to keep a distance on this network which doesn't work at all like the others: we are on a very fast consumption of contents, the form is much more important than the content... It's a network which doesn't have only good sides. It's important to be there, but not at the expense of other platforms!

Meet Culturez-vous - illustration 1
Meet Culturez-vous - illustration 1

On the left : photograph of Abbaye du Val-de-Grâce in Paris, on the right : photograph of a community visit © Antoine Vitek

8. What was the last exhibition or museum visit that you loved?

I had a huge crush on the museum of the Service des Santé des Armées at the Val de Grâce, a museum that is still too unknown but nevertheless fascinating and not very expensive (€5) which allows you to discover the evolution of war medicine while enjoying the magnificent architecture of the Val de Grâce and its church. It is a must-see.

9. And finally, do you have any upcoming projects you want to tell us about?

I am relaunching a project that I had put on hold during the pandemic: visits with my community. Every month, I propose to visit a cultural place in small groups with my subscribers. These are free visits that allow us to spend a convivial moment around the discovery of an exhibition, a museum or a monument. It allows me to meet my subscribers and to make social networks really social!

If you want to participate, I announce these visits about a week in advance on my social media. Keep an eye out for my posts and I hope to see you there one day...


Their favorite artworks

Painting, Wonderland, C215

Wonderland

C215

Painting - 88 x 67 x 3 cm

Sold

Sculpture, Sophie Calle, Ainsi de suite - Édition limitée, Sophie Calle

Sophie Calle, Ainsi de suite - Édition limitée

Sophie Calle

Sculpture - 24 x 18 x 7 cm

€1,200

Print, Grib, Bernar Venet

Grib

Bernar Venet

Print - 28 x 38.5 x 1 cm

€3,000

Print, La Mère & la Fille / Mother and Daughter - 1913, Egon Schiele

La Mère & la Fille / Mother and Daughter - 1913

Egon Schiele

Print - 80 x 58 cm

€1,990

Print, Lovers - 1904/1905, Gustav Klimt

Lovers - 1904/1905

Gustav Klimt

Print - 65 x 50 cm

Sold

Print, Constellation III (Por Alberti, por l'Espana), Joan Miró

Constellation III (Por Alberti, por l'Espana)

Joan Miró

Print - 90 x 66 x 0.2 cm

€19,000

Print, Les Etoiles, Georges Braque

Les Etoiles

Georges Braque

Print - 48 x 36 x 0.1 cm

€920

Photography, Shaolin Monastery. Henan Province, China, Steve McCurry

Shaolin Monastery. Henan Province, China

Steve McCurry

Photography - 76.2 x 101.6 x 0.1 cm

€18,000

Painting, Paix en mer... (esprit voile 2022), Olivier Messas

Paix en mer... (esprit voile 2022)

Olivier Messas

Painting - 80 x 80 x 2 cm

€1,700

Print, Elle m'adore, Philippe Geluck

Elle m'adore

Philippe Geluck

Print - 77 x 53 cm

€1,800

Print, La Poule, Marc Chagall

La Poule

Marc Chagall

Print - 48 x 34 x 0.1 cm

€1,020

Print, L’Homme en blanc, Jérôme Mesnager

L’Homme en blanc

Jérôme Mesnager

Print - 76 x 53 cm

€2,500