Quai Branly Museum, Less Popular Than Zidane Right Now
After hearing the seething words in the NY Times last week about the opening of the Quai Branly museum in Paris (“A Heart of Darkness in the City of Light”), then picking it up again at Things Magazine, who has a nice rundown of the whole thing, we thought we’d mention it, just in case you’d missed it, with the peak being this story from the Guardian: “Musee des bogus arts.” Most knew the thing wasn’t going to be for everyone going in, even from a story that ran just a bit ago in the Times (summarized here, so you don’t have to go register or pay anything), which stated off the bat, “It’s not an easy building to love.” But love didn’t seem to ever even enter the equation. People loathe the place. It’s dark to the point of being almost pitch-black, the exhibits don’t make any sense, and probably the first thing they teach you in Museum Making 101 was skipped: clearly label what it is you’re looking at so people, you know, know what they’re look at. The point of the whole thing, or so it sounds, is to blend, to bring together all of this different stuff, and by extension their cultures, and mash them all together and reach some sort of harmony through equality. So, in short, it’s an art project that’s cost hundreds of millions of dollars. And because the criticism has been so harsh, it will be really interesting to see what becomes of it. Exhibits move on, staff leaves or gets forces out, and, maybe even seemingly impossibly at this very moment, because we’re so close to it, the public changes their perception of things. Will we look back and see it as a success that simply shocked the heck out of us? Or will everyone be canned and they’ll start putting in fiberglass dinosaurs and hang gliders from 1908? That’ll ultimately be the really fascinating part in all of this.
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