Strasbourg (AFP)
The Center Pompidou-Metz celebrated its 10 years of opening to the public on Tuesday, a somewhat sad anniversary for the Lorraine museum, closed due to the coronavirus crisis and which will only reopen at best in June .
The museum was inaugurated on May 11, 2010 by Nicolas Sarkozy, before opening its doors to the public the next day.
After welcoming more than 300,000 visitors in 2019, the institution is currently closed due to the coronavirus crisis.
Some of the 75 employees are gradually returning to the spectacular architecture to prepare the museum for its reopening to the public, which could take place in mid-June.
"Initially a festive weekend was to be organized from May 15 to 17, we hope to be able to organize it later in the course of the year," said one within the museum.
The programming for this year 2020 was "the opportunity to return to this first decade of sharing with the public and openness to creation in all its forms, but also to build and foreshadow our vision for the future".
The exhibition "Folklore", and the installation "Frémissements", by the Austrian artist Susanna Fritscher, which were to be inaugurated on March 21, will be visible as soon as the Center Pompidou-Metz reopens.
The one on the painter Yves Klein and his contemporaries, initially planned from May 2, on the other hand, is postponed, probably in mid-July. It will be followed by that dedicated to the painter "Marc Chagall, passer de lumière", scheduled for October.
Since its opening in May 2010, the Pompidou-Metz Center, the first experience of decentralization of a national public cultural establishment, has welcomed nearly 4 million visitors.
Also located in Malaga (Spain) and Brussels, the Pompidou Center opened its first establishment outside Europe in Shanghai last November.
© 2020 AFP