"Art is absolutely crucial", the Center Pompidou in the days of the coronavirus

Text by: Siegfried Forster

"We are at war," insisted the French president against the coronavirus. What is the role of art in wartime? Interview with Serge Lasvignes, president of the Center Pompidou, the largest institution for modern and contemporary art in Europe.

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RFI : This permanent closure is a first in the history of the Center Pompidou . What does it concretely represent for your institution ?

Serge Lasvignes : I felt this closure like a real punch in the stomach. It comes in a double context. On the one hand, there has been a fairly spectacular expansion of the Center Pompidou. We have opened the Pompidou Center in Shanghai , a new cultural center in Brussels , renewed the Pompidou Center in Malaga and we are in discussion with Korea. So there is a very good international development. There have been magnificent, very diverse and specific exhibitions throughout this season. Today, we have the feeling of a very brutal rupture, of a very unexpected blow.

At the same time, we experienced a succession of crises: there was the yellow vests crisis which had an impact on attendance. There were all the strikes linked to the pension reform which made us lose a lot of public. It is crisis after crisis. These are the two things that have caused a kind of moral blow. That said, in our situation, there is no question of procrastinating. The key word is responsibility. So we followed the instructions of the government closely. And we acted immediately.

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Since Monday March 16, a new milestone has been reached in France. " We are at war, " insisted the President of the Republic several times in his statement in the evening. What is - or should be - the role of art in wartime ?

For me, art is absolutely crucial. First, I think of all the artists, all the poets who created magnificent works in wartime. And I say to myself, in a very difficult situation of this kind, with in addition " social distancing ", I consider that art makes it possible both to maintain the link with others and to strengthen us, " armor ", enrich . Above all, avoid being in a situation where you feel like you are alone. And art prevents this type of situation. Me, if I am confined and I open an exhibition catalog, it immediately allows me to travel and I have the feeling of sharing.

In November 2019, you inaugurated the Pompidou Center in Shanghai, the West Bund Museum . Are there experiences to pass on in the face of this coronavirus crisis ?

Me, I will be careful not to draw from it directly. What I just noticed was that we closed the museums in Shanghai. There, we are about to reopen them, a few months later. So there has been a cycle. I think that this closure was necessary in Shanghai and that it was necessary to finish closing the museums also in France.

In these troubled times, how will the Center Pompidou modify or widen its digital sources and offers ?

From this point of view, the crisis can be a lesson. To show us both the importance of digital proposals and how to enrich them. We have a deep conviction: digital can never replace physical presence. At the same time, digital becomes a necessary complementary offer. Necessary, because it allows you to do things that you cannot do with the physical presence and it also allows you to reach an audience that does not necessarily come physically to the museum.

We already have a very large community on social networks, with more than three million people following us. We will have to enrich our proposals to these people. For this, we already have a new podcast offer that works well and that really meets an expectation. Then, we have a kind of mine, a very impressive deposit of video wealth, because we have filmed enormously throughout the history of the Center Pompidou master classes, conferences, exhibitions. We are going to work from all these deposits, so that it is easily accessible to the public and that we can promote it.

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Not to mention that in 2017 you also launched an online school which currently offers a Mooc on Pop Art . Since the center closed last weekend, have you ever noticed a change in the number or behavior of your digital visitors ?

We are already seeing an increase in attendance. It's clear.

Among your digital offers, there is the initiative A podcast, a work . What is the work of the Center Pompidou that comes to mind when you think of the coronavirus crisis and President Macron's statement : " We are at war " ?

I hesitate between two works: on the one hand, the famous portrait of Giorgio De Chirico (1888-1978) which is called "the premonitory portrait of Guillaume Apollinaire" [painted in spring 1914, editor's note]. It is a magnificent work which shows Apollinaire already with the mark he will receive during the war. In this portrait of Apollinaire, who resisted the war, wrote absolutely magnificent poems during the war and was then killed by the "Spanish flu", there is an aesthetic manifestation of fate which is impressive.

At the same time, I think of the Blues of Miro , [the famous triptych of the three Blues, Blue I , Blue II , Blue III , 1961, by Joan Miro, 1893-1983, note]. Art can give us today a lesson in serenity and calm.

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