Steven Carnel, co-founder of the Museum of Illusion, gives a demonstration on one of the museum's installations on May 14, 2020. (photo backwards) - Aude Lorriaux / 20 Minutes

  • The Illusion Museum has welcomed a hundred visitors since its reopening on May 11.
  • But this opening was short-lived: Thursday, May 14, the police checked the museum which did not have the necessary authorizations, and it had to close its doors.
  • Report a few hours before the (re) closing of the museum.

It was an almost perfect illusion ... In Paris, the Illusion Museum, which had been deconfigured since May 11, had to close its doors. In question: the museum had reopened without the famous local authorization.

It all started well, this May 14, the day that  20 Minutes had chosen for a report on the spot. It was the fourth day of reopening of this very young museum, installed since December in the capital, following a crush on Steven Carnel, one of the co-founders, for optical illusions. At noon, around fifteen people had already presented themselves at the counter, to enjoy the geometric figures in the shape of a trompe l'oeil hanging on the wall, or rooms giving the illusion of being very small in the camera thanks to the perspective game, or even the giant kaleidoscope allowing you to see yourself multiplied:

Steven Carnel, photographed through the kaleidoscope of the Illusion Museum, of which he is the spokesperson and co-founder. - Aude Lorriaux / 20 Minutes

"There is practically nothing open in Paris"

In all, around a hundred people have visited the museum since May 11, at the rate of “30 to 40” visitors per day, according to Steven Carnel, for a gauge of 70 people in coronavirus time. The press too had flocked to this museum, which had become a pioneer in regaining cultural freedom.

"There is practically nothing open in Paris, I tried the Balzac Museum, the Zadkine Museum, nothing is open, and I had no answer on the phone", explained, disappointed, Patricia, a resident of Essonne who came to buy her ticket at the counter, happy to finally come across an open institution. At the cash register, Thomas gives him a ticket. A few meters away, Steven Carnel gives him an instruction: "For the physical ticket, the doctrine is as they want. If they don't prefer to touch a ticket, you can just take their name. "

The mask is not required

"The rules are very clear," continues the museum's co-founder, at 20 Minutes  : "People have reserved a time slot. They are counted manually or on an application. They give their name or else the ticket is scanned. Then you have to respect the safety distances, and we put hydroalcoholic gel everywhere ”.

At the Museum of Illusion, unlike the Giacometti Institute for example, the mask is not required, and you can touch the works. The installations are however disinfected permanently, specifies the spokesperson, and the works entirely dedicated to the touch, like the puzzles which one could try to solve, were removed. "We clean every 30 minutes," confirms Charlene, an employee. And masks are offered to people who express the need.

A panel with instructions against the coronavirus at the Musée de l'Illusion, in Paris, on May 14, 2020. - Aude Lorriaux / 20 Minutes

Stunning

Upstairs, Steven Carnel takes us to one of his favorite tours. This is Jastrow's illusion, the name of the American psychologist who made this formidable discovery: if we place one below the other two rectangles of the same shape, slightly concave, aligning their outer edges on one side, the top one seems shorter than the other. We may well place and replace the geometric figure which serves as a comparator on one and the other drawing, we are still stunned.

"It's the most stunning, it is simple and funky," enthuses Steven Carnel, passionate, who discovered this illusion in Zagreb, in a museum on the same theme. "When I saw that, I wanted to do the same," he explains.

Jastrow's illusion, at the Musée de l'Illusion, in Paris, May 14, 2020, in the presence of its co-founder, Steven Carnel. - Aude Lorriaux / 20 Minutes

No authorization, no exposure

Before going into the next room, the co-founder almost apologizes for having "only" bottles in the form of a hydroalcoholic gel pump to offer. "We will soon have non-tactile dispensers," he said straight away.

The museum will now have time to receive them, since it must close its doors for an indefinite period, we learned its manager a few hours after our departure. Police arrived on site and asked, according to Steven Carnel at the museum, the prefectural authorization required, which the institution, not aware of these provisions according to its spokesperson, could not produce. "They told us that we respected everything in terms of hygiene but that we still needed an authorization," reports Steven Carnel, who is also a lawyer. Abracadabra, as quickly appeared, so quickly disappeared.

A visitor to the Museum of Illusion on May 14 in Paris. - Aude Lorriaux / 20 Minutes

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  • Covid 19
  • Deconfinement
  • Optical illusion
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  • Coronavirus
  • Paris
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