What’s just happened here feels like a breath of fresh air... Paris’ young, experimental art scene has acquired two new multi-sponsored, government-backed “playgrounds” — a 4 000 square meter “site,” in one of the main wings of the Palais de Tokyo originally built for the Exposition internationale de Paris in 1937. Plus... “Le Plateau,” a revamped movie studio cum exhibition space in the Buttes-Chaumont neighborhood, supported by the Fonds régional d’art contemporain d’Ile-de-France.
In both cases, the expression “brand-new” is inappropriate as each location has “history.” In another life, the first housed France’s National Photography Center, while the second is legendary to film buffs.
Facing the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, the two-level Palais de Tokyo concourse is spectacular because monumental, but has a rough-hewn, free and easy “aura,” reminiscent of the early days of pioneering “anti-institutions” like New York’s PS1 or London’s Whitechapel Gallery. The contrary of a conventional museum, it will have no permanent collection.
Albeit state-run — this multidisciplinary multimedia venture sees itself as a living “search engine” with something happening every week. Surprising visual arts or video installations. Unscheduled music events. Or, fashion shows organized at the drop of a hat. Accessible every day from noon to midnight, it has a bookstore specialized in current artistic developments and an “open” café where members of the public can mingle with artists and art students, without necessarily going “inside.”
Among the arty crowd that thronged to the Palais de Tokyo’s DJ housewarming, sponsored by Hennessy cognac and Trium cell-phones: several representatives of the global art market’s A-list were clearly keen to test the pulse of this next generation “springboard”... Asked for his opinion, Daniel Buren — a mainstream “conceptual” artist whose striped columns in the Ministry of Culture’s Palais Royal courtyard continue to be considered controversial by many “uninitiated” Parisians — flashed a rare, triumphant “toothpaste ad” grin, then told the Voice: “This is going to clean things up! It’s like a tonic!”
Palais de Tokyo Site for contemporary arts Tue-Sun, noon to midnight, 16 av du Président Wilson, 16e, tel: 01 47 23 54 01, M° Iéna, 32F/19F or 5 euros/3 euros
“Le Plateau* 33 rue des Alouettes, 19e, tel: 01 53 19 88 10 (*Officially inaugurated last month/open to the public for its first expo Mar 7)
