Beaubourg Museum of Modern Art

Beaubourg Museum of Modern Art

While I’ll leave the serious and scholarly art history dissertations to my wife – she’s the one with the degree in art history – as I see it, European fine art had its basis in the Catholic Church, nation states and royalty via commissioning various works to their pleasure or political motivations. Art of the time was filled with symbolism and attempts at near-photographic imagery. Superb craft was developed over time to where it can be nearly impossible to distinguish the painted piece from a photograph from any reasonable distance.

As artists started painting for their own self expression – often driven to extremes just to continue that opportunity – artists drew us in with a new way of looking at that which could now be reproduced more accurately via a photograph; hence the Impressionists. They wanted us to see and feel what they saw and felt. They wanted us to see the world in a less mundane way than a highly accurate translation of a scene now made possible via photography.

The colorful space below is designed to help you see exactly how color perception changes when color patterns are viewed through colored lenses. The filter panels are on tracks so that you can move and combine them for different effects.

 Many of today’s artists seem to want to make art more interactive, to do more than simply make us think. They want us to bring a new dimension, a unique personal experience in such a way that we become an ephemeral component of the work, an experience that has been set up by the artist, but whose final impact is both very personal while potentially bringing new insights, even to the artist. This is not the art of the Cubists, the Dadaists, et al, who expected us to dig deeper to decipher what they were saying. They wanted us to invest in experiencing their work. This is art that invites you to simply experience it on a personal level often free of any expected outcome other than perhaps delight or any other range of emotion.

Which is why the “Beaubourg” or the Centre Georges Pompidou museum is such a refreshing place. It is at the same time a stark, utilitarian structure that infuses a deep sense of minimalist architectural design yet it often supports pure, unbridled whimsy. Initially the Beaubourg was not well received. National Geographic described it as “love at second sight,” other’s described it as Paris’ own Lock Ness monster.

(Yes, the girls are looking at empty frames arranged as family photos might be in a suburban home.)

If you want to see the old masters, including La Giaconda (Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa) go to the Louvre. For Impressionists and other fine art, the D’Orsay moves you into the early 1900’s. But it is the Pompidou (designed by Richard Rogers, Renzo Piano and Glanfranco Franchini in 1971 and completed 1977) that will bring you from the 1960’s to today. Whether it's the Stravinsky Fountain (Fontaine des Automates) -- a reflecting pool opposite centuries old architecture -- populated with brightly painted whimsical, moving, water-spraying, imaginary creatures, representing Stravinsky musical themes, or a perforated steel installation in the main galleries that’s part cave, part labyrinth, or simply a visual delight, the art engages you, invites you to be a part of it.

That’s not to say you won’t find significant works by Picasso, Mondrian, Chagall or others. There’s simply an opportunity to find art that does more than make you say, that’s interesting.

The Beaubourg is actually a multi-functional cultural center. It houses an extensive library, exhibition space, the largest modern art collection in Europe, observation decks, “gardens” and restaurants.

The escalator ride up to floor four (the permanent exhibition space) is via a clear tube structure external to the building itself. You feel a bit like a hamster in a clear polycarbonate tube maze. But the view of the museum’s plaza and all of its activity is it’s own reward as you ascend the structure.

In addition to the exhibition space there is an open-air restaurant on level six as well as a wonderful observation deck / reflecting pool terrace. The views of downtown Paris are simply absorbing. It’s also a nice respite from the art, a bit like cleansing your palette between courses of a fine meal with a citrus sorbet.

But either before entering the museum, or before leaving for the day, take time to absorb another function of the facility, the plaza (Place Georges Pompidou). You’ll find families having picnics, probably didgeridoo players looking for tips as they play along with pre-recorded music tracks, street vendors hawking kitschy Eiffel Tower key rings and table-top mementos, jugglers, mimes, artists, or just about anyone else exhibiting their prowess at some arcane craft or athletic endeavor.

Set off to one end of the plaza in its own building is the Atelier Brancusi sculpture museum that is an interpreted replica of the artist’s exhibition studio and work rooms… behind glass. Brancusi, as did Rodin, left his entire estate and personal collections to the French State.

The facility was designed as the artist bequeathed before his death by Renzo Piano to not so much duplicate Brancusi’s actual studio, but to create an accessible space that preserved his sense of negative space and light; so much so that the lighting itself was designed to duplicate the natural light of Brancusi’s actual studio. The light and negative space was especially important because much of what the artist intended was a function of the materials used, the space around it and the light surrounding it.

Finally, across the plaza, a pistache (pistachio) gelato goes a long way to delight yet another sense to complete the day.