International News Digest
PALAIS DE TOKYO—THE SEQUEL?
Architects are descending on the empty spaces in the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. As Agence France-Presse reports, eighty-eight architectural teams responded to the call to transform the unused parts of the vast building into an integrated contemporary arts center. The existing Palais de Tokyo Site de Création Contemporaine—which was opened in 2002 under the directorship of Jérôme Sans and Nicolas Bourriaud and has been run by Marc-Olivier Walher since 2006—takes up only eighty-six thousand square feet of the building, while the remaining ninety-seven thousand square feet are to be revamped by 2012. While the French minister of culture launched the call to architects in December, the firms that have entered the competition have not yet been named, although the report notes that “well-known” agencies are among the eighty-eight candidates vying for the contract. A jury will preselect three architectural proposals by mid-March; the winner will be announced this July, and construction will start by the end of this year, with the opening by the beginning of 2012.
While the winning project will “integrate” the existing Palais de Tokyo, it remains unclear whether the architecturally integrated building will be run as one institution or as an institution within another. The report cites Walher as the director of the existing Palais de Tokyo but adds the names of Mark Alizart as the delegated director and Olivier Kaeppelin as the head of the “project” of the Palais de Tokyo. One thing is clear: The Centre Pompidou will not be creating a “Centre Pompidou-Alma” branch inside the building to show contemporary French artists. After much ado, this proposal from the Centre Pompidou president Alain Seban was rejected by the government in May 2009 in favor of Kaeppelin’s project. Seban’s proposal was estimated to cost fifty-six million dollars, while Kaeppelin’s is estimated at twenty-eight million dollars.
“[The Pompidou proposal] risked making the spaces into a layered cake with the Centre Pompidou below and the Site de Création Contemporaine above,” said Kaeppelin, who was the director of the arts delegation Délégation des Arts Plastiques (DAP) within the ministry of culture until January. As the new head of the Palais de Tokyo “project,” Kaeppelin wants to have a space that will open up onto the courtyard and perhaps even the river Seine. The entrance will include an area called “the street” with small cultural businesses, catering, and video games. According to the report, there will also be a large space for monographic exhibitions featuring either contemporary French artists or contemporary artists with a link to the country. Smaller rooms will give “carte blanche” to artists, as well as to critics and to collectors. “Our luck is that our project is not expensive,” says Kaeppelin. Of the estimated twenty-eight-million-dollar cost, nearly half will be provided by the minister of culture, while the rest will come from loans and patrons. While Kaeppelin’s project may be more modest financially and easier in terms of branding with the existing Palais de Tokyo, it seems to be somewhat more ambiguous in terms of administration. Perhaps it’s the DAP-Alma branch of the ministry of culture inside the Palais de Tokyo.
A “MONUMENTA” SUCCESS—WITH ANISH KAPOOR NEXT
The third edition of Monumenta—a contemporary installation by the French artist Christian Boltanski inside the Grand Palais in Paris—has proved a monumental success, according to a report by Agence France-Presse. During the special exhibition’s run from January 13 to February 21, Boltanski’s work—ambiguously titled Personnes(which literally means “people” but sounds like “no one”)—attracted more than 149,700 visitors, with an average of 4,159 per day. That’s a 5 percent increase over the last edition of Monumenta, when Richard Serra took over the palace with his “Promenande” of towering steel sculptures. Next up for Monumenta: Anish Kapoor, staged May through June of 2011.
CHRISTOPH BÜCHEL’S SWINGERS CLUB
A “swingers” club has moved into an art gallery with the stated aim of helping visitors to a Gustav Klimt exhibition confront their sexual inhibitions, according to BBC News. The Secession, a contemporary art venue in Vienna, has incorporated the club, named Element6, as part of a project by Swiss artist Christoph Büchel. Visitors must walk through it to reach one of Klimt’s paintings. A spokesman said Büchel hoped to spark a scandal similar to when Klimt’s Beethoven Frieze was exhibited in 1902. It has already attracted opposition from Austria’s far-right Freedom Party, which issued no fewer than six press releases denouncing the project on Monday and Tuesday. “By abusing artistic freedom, the significance of Austria as a country of culture and of Vienna as a cultural capital is being dragged in the mud,” said local Freedom Party politician Gerald Ebinger.
According to Germany’s Bild newspaper, local councilor Ursula Stenzel, who initially approved the installation, subsequently got cold feet. “I signed the approval only under massive protest,” she was quoted as saying. “It was always spoken of as an art project with a nightclub but never as a swingers’ club.” Vienna’s mayor, Michael Haeupl, added that he did not approve of the club, but noted that outraged politicians and newspapers were playing into the artist’s hands.
Klimt’s painting Beethoven Frieze was once considered obscene and pornographic because of the way women’s bodies were depicted, but it is now seen as one of the Austrian artist’s key works. The painting is on display in the basement of the Secession, and visitors must pass through the swingers’ club to reach it. While the club only opens at night, long after the art hall closes, daytime visitors aged eighteen and older pass through its dimly lit rooms, complete with mattresses, bar, and spa bath. The club, which is normally located in another part of town, said its participation “aims to give as many people as possible the opportunity to overcome their inhibitions.”