Paris (AFP)
Museum openings and reopenings will once again mark 2020 in Paris, with the inauguration of the Bourse de commerce, François Pinault's ambitious contemporary art center, in June. An ever more plethoric art offer that makes many jealous in the provinces.
It is in the old hall renovated by the Japanese architect Tadao Ando, between Forum des Halles and Louvre, that the Breton billionaire found the suitable place for his immense collection.
It will compete with the Vuitton Foundation from its competitor Bernard Arnault, located in the Bois de Boulogne.
François Pinault, by establishing himself in the heart of the heart of Paris, plays the winner.
In the summer, the Hôtel de la Marine, Place de la Concorde, which has also been restored, will open and begin to exhibit works drawn from the immense Al Thani collections. The Qatari Family Foundation will have space there for twenty years to exhibit them.
Memory of the history of Paris, the Carnavalet Museum will have reopened after a deep facelift, just like the Palais Galliera, fashion museum, and the house of Victor Hugo place des Vosges.
History lovers will be able to visit the July Column at the Bastille, and at Versailles to enter the interior apartments of the king and queen.
Other projects are underway or planned: such as the well-advanced restoration of the historic palace of the National Library of France (BNF) on rue Richelieu which will see its museum spaces increased, or the project of future Grand Century Museum in the Sully Barracks in Saint Cloud.
- Concentration and overcrowding -
The overflow of public and private museum offerings which increases in the capital each year creates an overcrowding of certain places to the detriment of others. This could explain why the Monnaie de Paris, magnificently located on the banks of the Seine, decided to "reorient" its programming by stopping in February its major monographic exhibitions, after that of Kiki Smith.
Faced with the plethora of Parisian offers, heritage defenders advocate better enhancement of regional heritage to promote growth and employment in neglected areas, as the organizer Stéphane Bern continues to argue.
"There is priority to put funds in really interesting offers, theaters, museums, artists' houses outside Paris. This will have a real economic and social return" for these regions, underlines to AFP Célia Vérot , Director General of the Fondation du Patrimoine.
"It would have been a magnificent gesture for one of the two billionaires Pinault and Arnault to choose a city that is not Paris to establish its foundation", notes Julien Lacaze, vice-president of the association for the defense of heritage "Sites and monuments ".
"But in Paris, they don't take risks, the visitors are there," he observes.
They could have set up, for example, their contemporary art center in the outbuildings of the royal castle of Villers-Cotterêts, which is to be renovated in the center of La Francophonie, in Aisne, an economically neglected region, who dreams of Mr. Lacaze.
And if the Center Pompidou-Metz, the Louvre-Lens and the new Louvre research and reserve center in Liévin (Pas-de-Calais), are examples of a proactive policy for investing in the provinces, this is not enough .
No more than the ambitious policy of the big cities of France which equip themselves one after the other with magnificent futuristic museums, such as MUCEM in Marseille.
"Despite an incredible number of exhibitions, often of quality, especially in summer, they struggle to compete with those of Paris. Because the most beautiful works are there, attracting the attention of the media. The provincial museums are empty outside some spots, "says Jean-Christophe Castelain, director of the Journal des Arts.
What remedies: "they should make their disabilities a strength: rather than trying to put together large monographs to compete with Paris, they should choose exhibitions with an original theme and focus on mediation" of agents specially responsible for 'explain the meaning of the works to the public, suggests this expert.
© 2020 AFP