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Click on the picture. |
Sunday, January 6, 2013
CONCLUSION
In conclusion,
we can say that this museum has many faces, which is definitively delivering a
living museum where the public never get tired to admire the masterpieces of
centuries all as rich as each other. This is a museum, which is not an alien in
the urban landscape of Lens and doesn’t leave indifferent the visitors of the museum,
to some conventional, yet rich exhibitions.
Indeed, while the museum has a contemporary
architecture, its exhibitions are reminiscent of the 19th century exhibitions
without falling in the mistakes of the past. It revives what it pleases to the
public without too much install technological devices. Is this a deliberate
choice? In any case, this is a place charge with emotions.
However, the museum still has many challenges
to overcome, if the direction wants it to be considered as an exemplary
contemporary museum. For example, the park is not yet finished. Moreover, the
parking close to the museum is too small to accommodate all visitors who come
by car without any problems. Finally, the car park’s exit seems to be a bit too
narrowed, which will certainly create traffic problems. These are technical
problems yet the museum direction will have to deal with them quickly.
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| The museum at night. |
EPILOGUE
Total foundations' website : an opportunity to advertise the world of the Louvre Lens' interest.
Click on the link to open it :
It is more and more recurrent to see patronage and sponsorship actions in Heritage, helping for example museums to propose regular temporary exhibitions, the possibility to lend and to borrow masterpieces while insurances are on of the biggest part of exhibitions' budget. For example, the Musée de la Piscine of Roubaix is sponsored by numerous sponsorships like Air France, Devianne, Gaz de France or even the Société Générale. The Louvre Lens is sponsored by a huge patron, the Total Foundation.
In this article, we are going to present the Total Foundation, an French foundation involved in a lot of projects. Then, we will explain the sponsorship between the foundation and the Louvre Lens.
I. Presentation of the website.
The Total foundation is working in the aim to provide help to local enterprises and to produce models that can be reproduces in other places. It is helping local players on projects which are developing a certain type of objectives : providing knowledge, preserving memory, environment of reducing social exclusion, and finally celebrating new ways to raise awareness into public' opinion about these new acquisitions. For example, Total foundation is heaping today the institute Pasteur into recherché programs.
The website is composed of five different sections, each one is dedicated to a very specific subject, where each action is presented in details. They are composed of a presentation of the Foundation, it's sponsorships about Health, Solidarity, Culture, Marine biodiversity and a special section about the 20 years of the foundation. We will only present the sections about the foundation itself, the Sponsorships about Culture and the importance of the Louvre Lens project.
1. The Foundation itself
This section is explaining the main policy of the Foundation, proposing an interview with the foundation's chairman and it's managing director, the objectives of the foundation, the avenues of actions and the employee volunteerism.
A second section is proposing a map of all of the initiatives around the world and the Foundation's partnership is visible on the website, differentiating the projects about Environment, Culture and Heritage, Health and Solidarity and Collaborating projects with other foundations (like the Fondation du Patrimoine, or the Fonds d'expérimentation pour la jeunesse). Most of the sponsorship is provided to Africa, Turkey, Europe, South Asia and South America.
The organization is proposing to the viewers the possibility to have a look on the annual budgets and to the governance, which is organized in three parts. The permanent team is running the foundation, reporting the actions to the partners and reflects on the directions the Foundation must follow. The committees of experts is in charge with the decision-making processes, examining the projects before to present them to the Board of Directors. Finally, the board of directors are voting and taking the final decisions about the accepted projects, the amount of budget allowed and validated for each of them. They also validate the strategic decisions proposed by the foundation's permanent team.
The website is also proposing a presentation of the partners, with a presentation distinguishing the ones for healthcare, for community commitment, for culture and for marine biodiversity.
The last years activity reports (from 2008 to 2010) are freely downloadable.
2. The Foundation's sponsorship about Culture
Promoting inter-generational and intercultural exchanges, Total's foundation is helping different projects in France, Africa and foreign countries. A partnership between them and the cultural institution of the Fondation du Patrimoine had been signed.
"Preserving French cultural heritage"
Under this title, we can finds several projects concretized with the help from Total Foundation. Most of them are not only concerning Cultural project, but also education projects : most of the restorations and conversions are the work of local handicrafts and students in handicraft. These projects are participating to the creation of a new dynamic in the region 's economy. This participation into Culture and Economy is visible thug :
- trough the restoration of old industrial sites like the Leroy Factory, the Pôle intercommunal de Lecture Publique et d'Archives (Pyrenées Atlantiques).
- Cultural and touristic conversion projects are encouraged through multiple transformations, like the rehabilitation of an ancient Porvencal country house into a Museum of decorative arts and the transformation of a Parisian art deco building into a complex dedicated to the image as a document (Le BAL).
- transforming worksites into professional training "open-hair schools", like in the AIns with Coucy le Château, a cultural heritage used in the aim to combat exclusion of youth ; or event the Fort d'Entrecasteaux in Marseille, a fort restored today also with the help of a association fighting agains exclusion.
"Sharing the world culture"
As we already know, Total's foundation is trying to contribute to different type of projects in several countries. In this optic to create links in-between civilizations through education and Culture. The help given in the aim to create new museum departments seems however to be concentrated in Paris. It is concerning today :
- the Arab world Institute in Paris
- The Lyon museum of fine Arts
- the Islamic arts
- the Louvre museum, Paris
- the Quai Branly
- the Dapper Museum, Paris
- the Guimet Museum
But there is a few notable exceptions, like :
- the creation of "The Genius of the Orient" exhibition at the Beaux Arts de Lyon
- the sponsoring of "Présence africain : a forum, movement, a network" exhibition, first presented at the Quai Branly, then at the Cheikh Anta Diop University library in Dakar
"Sponsoring contemporary creation"
By sponsoring exhibitions on multi cultural themes, more particularly at the Quai Branly and in other places in France, Total foundation is promoting Culture for everyone, though, for exemple :
- the "Fantastic-Lille 3000" event
- The CHIFA or Chinese Culture in Peru, at the Quai Branly
- the presentation of Fional Pardington's art at the Qua Branly Museum
- the exhibition about Landscape (re)found in Paris, at the Quai Branly Museum
The foundation is also working with France's biggest museums in the aim to broaden access to culture "to each and all". A few museums are included into this partnership :
- The Louvre Museum though the help given iin the aim to open a new wing at Lens
- The Mumo, the Mobilie Museum Foundation is bringing contemporary art to French and African children
- The associations' day in Paris, created by the Quai Brany museum is providing a social outreach program to acces exhibitions organized in France's major museums with the help of Total's Foundation
- The Gates of Heaven, in Paris, organized with the Louvre' s help, in the organization of a project enlarging the publics' access to the Louvre's collection during the closed days of the museum.
II. Presentation of the partnership with the Louvre Lens
1. The Louvre Lens, a project matching the several criteria of the Foundation.
According to Total Foundation's policy, the Louvre Lens is a perfect example of a local Heritage project. In the aim to provide an economical revival in the Nord Pas de Calais, and as a symbol of political and cultural decentralization.
It is not only respecting the obligation to promote culture for everyone, but also the preservation of local Heritage. The museum had been placed near the pithead n°9, now classified as UNESCO's International heritage, which is also a great attraction, based on two very different types of Heritage.The project had also been sponsored by the Foundation because of the architectural choices : the glass and metal buildings are harmoniously blending into the regional landscape, highlighting the typical landscape to the publics through the huge picture windows. The choice had been made to respect the natural heritage, by creating parks well stocked with regional flowers and bushes.
The Louvre will now propose two type of stage designs, two types of look on the same type of masterpieces.
If the Louvre at Paris will continue to propose a traditional type of stage design, the Louvre situated at Lens will propose a new type of scenography, which is suppressing the walls in the aim to concentrate the publics' attention to the masterpieces, not to the stage design. It will also propose a simple and neutral way to expose the masterpieces, without giving to the publics the impression to go to the museum in the aim to learn something, but in the aim to enjoy Art and, if wanted, to ask for more informations to the museum's guides. It is proposing to the publics different ways to tackle Art according to its needs of interests.
2. The main interests of this type of sponsorship
Total's foundation is promoting local project with a national or an international interests, in the aim to invest a part of Total's profits into State and private establishments with a State interest.
A sponsorship between a private enterprise and a State establishment is concretely helping to keep a few standards : for example, the Ministry of Culture is functioning with tinier budgets, while the Louvre Lens project had been adopted since 2004, while the Economic crisis wasn't visible in the political background. Because of the present situation, the sponsorship had been essential in the aim to build the museum, to provide guides, the free access during a year for everybody (only for the regular exhibition, the temporary ones must be paid). It will also help the museum a regularly renewal of the Louvre's masterpieces, while Art's transport, protection and lending is expensive.
But a patronage, or a sponsorship can also have a few negative points. The sponsorship is including a contract , the money given must be employed in a very specific way, a way decided with the sponsor. Moreover, the fact to create a sponsorship with a foundation credited by Total can possibly put of some people : even if the enterprise is trying to develop a good image, it is hard to forget a few things, like the scandal provoked a few years ago about the cargo's accident on a oil rig this last year, or the fact that a few newspapers are assuming that Total is reducing it's oil refilling activity in the aim to control and increase oil's prices.
Nevertheless, in the aim to conclude on this article about sponsorship, we must remember that today, Culture and Heritage are functioning a lot with the help of private establishments. The Louvre Lens is only following a very common policy. Total's foundation is providing a financial help to State and Private establishments, like the Quai Branly, The Institute Pasteur or The Red Cross.
NATHALIE MAES.
NATHALIE MAES.
III. To exhibit differently an impressive collection.
What remains the
most impressive with this Museum, it is its way to expose its collection and to
offer a new meaning with the presentation of its objects. And here is its real
originality and its modernity.
1) The
Time Gallery.
On 400 feet in length, from the birth of writing to 3,500 BC until the
middle of the 19th century, all civilization and techniques are represented,
embracing the extent chronological and geographical collections of the Louvre.
The Time gallery is organised into 3 main periods: 70 works for the Antiquity,
45 works for the Middle ages and 90 works for Modern times.
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| A comparison between two masterpieces. |
Unlike other museums,
the Louvre-Lens do not possesses its own collections. The Time gallery exposes,
during 5 years, masterpieces from the Louvre museum. A little less than 20% of them will be renewed at the end of
a year, on the anniversary of the opening of the Museum on 4th December, then
regularly every year. This rotation will retain a regular audience who will be
able to discover each year a renewed exhibition.
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| The Time gallery without works of art. |
The bias in
favor of a unique exhibition room is a chance to link different works produced
by different cultures and civilizations, but created during the same historical
moment. Contrary to the Louvre museum, with its architectural limits, where the
presentation of the collections by Department imposes an exhibition by artistic
movement. On the contrary, the Louvre-Lens gives us another approach. The
public can, for example, see masterpieces of the classical Greece face to those
of the Persian Empire or those of Pharaonic Egypt. It is a new understanding of
the History of art and humanity, which is possible here.
2) The Glass pavilion.
Enlightened due to large glass panels, the Glass Pavilion is divided into three interior spaces all closed. For a period of five years, the subject presented is the history of the time. "Time at work” tackles the cycle of the seasons, day, night, and calendars, but also the linear time based on human life, the life of the world. Each year, a new theme will be developed to complete and extend the Time gallery in a pedagogical and didactic approach.
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| A cocoon of the Glass pavilion. |
The common theme
seems to be hard to apprehend but the designer had been able to make the
subject accessible to everyone by playing on a rhythmical course of three huge
bubbles of plaster that create the effect of surprise. The visitor is invited
to enter in these cocoons that serve to create an atmosphere of calm and quiet.
Then, we can say that this exhibition space is very entertaining,
because the public can easily participate : for example, there are in the Glass
pavilion, video to watch and listen with explanations on the subject that the
exhibition deals with. There is also a contemporary work of art that gives us a
personal experience of time through the transcript of the heartbeat in a comic
or philosophical message.
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| A contemporary work of art. |
However, there
again, we did not notice extravagances in the presentation of works of art. The
walls and the floor are always white. We feel this desire of continuity in the
building and the habits of the Louvre museum to create something homogenous without
taking any risks, or offer to the public new devices.
3) The temporary exhibition.
Each year, two temporary exhibitions will be presented in relation with the themes choosen for the Parisien Louvre and the Nord-Pas-de-Calais museums. They will be designed in the aim of alternating exhibitions involving perspective a time or a place or crosscutting themes in the history of art. The temporary exhibition is currently focused on the Renaissance. The museum reaches to introduce a revolutionary period in the world of art through 14 different topics.
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| The skeleton. |
This exhibition
is on a traditional topic, but what is significant here is that there is a
presentation that goes furthermore and which isn’t limited it to the usual
masterpieces such as paintings of Leonardo da Vinci or Michelangelo. Of course,
there are “classical” works of arts as “Saint Anne, the Virgin and the child
playing with a lamb”, but this exhibition exceeds the clichés and gives us a section
on the body that requires attention of the public. In this part of the
exhibition, there are books opened with many prints, or even a sculpture that
represents a skeleton.
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| The reproduction of a room. |
Finally, unlike
the permanent exhibition and the Glass pavilion, the temporary exhibition is
situated in rooms with different atmospheres, where the walls may be painted
brightly. We can have the impression of being in another museum than the
Louvre-Lens’. It is not the same museum that we can regularly see in the
newspapers. It is a less modern museum, but perhaps it creates as much emotions
as another exhibitions, which turns more to the heart and to the affective taste.
We can't really
say that it is a contemporary museum according to the chosen approach of Art
and exhiitions, but is it perhaps more pleasant for the visitor to be in a protective
bubble or in an environment of contextualization, in order to not to be lost. Again,
it is important to remind that this museum want to have a place in the
education with pedagogical exhibitions.
Friday, January 4, 2013
II. Architecture of the 21st century (bis).
The Louvre Lens architecture : behind a museum,
a building
The transparency
and minimalistic style used by SANAA architects is not unanimously recognized.
If most of the newspapers and specialised magazines are approving the choice
maid by the French government, the building is also a subject of criticisms,
mostly developed by architects.
In the aim to give a different approach to this major
building in museum's architecture today, we will present first the SANAA's
architects, their main projects and compare these last ones to the Louvre Lens
building. Then, we will try here to give a short analyse about the different
levels of symbolism, which are composing the Louvre Lens museum. Finally, we
will propose a neutral comparison between the positive and the negative points
of the Louvre Lens 's architecture.
In the aim to justify the elements and the point of
view used in this article, a few elements are confirmed in different websites.
You can find it here :
About the SANAA's architects :
About the architecture's symbolism and the negative
points of the building
I. Behind the project : the SANAA's architectural firm
Created in 1995, the group is composed of two main
architects :
- Ryue Nishizawa, Japanese, is graduated of Yokohama National University since 1990. As
an independent architect, he worked only on buildings situated in his natal
country. But, as member of the SANAA's firm, he had helped in the creation several
projects all around the world.
- Kazuko Sejima, Japanese too, graduated of Japan Women's University since 1981.
Quickly, she founded an architecture's cabinet (the Kazuyo Sejima and
Associates, in 1987), where she worked on project mainly situated in Japan too.
She was appointed director of the architecture sector of the Venice Briennal in
2010, which a prestigious achievement, not only because of the nomination, but
also because she was the very first woman selected for this position.
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| http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Serpentine_Gallery_Pavilion_2009.JPG |
The minimalism in
the building, the search for a certain purity through the materials chosen like
aluminium and glasses, the fact to play with lights in the aim to decorate the
museum and without elements of decorum is recurrent into both architects'
creations. In fact, if we take a look at their creations, we can notice the
main presence of squares or cubes, glasses, space and minimalism.
Both the
architects had worked on several museum projects, most of them dedicated to
Contemporary Art. If we examine this last type of buildings, we can find a lot
of elements in common :
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| http://blog.japantwo.com/2012/01/26/4594 |
For example, the glass pavilion is particularly
praised as a wonderful architectural element of the Louvre Lens, in fact this
project is the current conclusion of several similar constructions. there is a
glass pavilion into the Septentrine Gallery of London , but also at the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio, United
States. The minimalistic architecture is a remanent theme in
the SANAA's production too. Here you have a picture of the 21st Century Museum
of contemporary Arts, situated in Kanazawa between 1999 and 2004. And the New Museum of Contemporary Art of New York,
built in 2007, where the use of cubic modules is usd in the aim to create a
particular type of building.
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http://guidepal.com/new-york/see--do/new-museum-of-contemporary-art |
II. Behind the minimalism, a building full of symbols.
The Louvre Lens
Museum had been created by two architects, Kazuyo Seijima and Ryue Nishizawa.
Even if both of them are japanese, they take their influences and inspiration
from French, American and Japanese contemporary Architecture. The building,
even if minimalistic, is full of symbols :
- even if the museum is a local satellite, the design
team chosen is not only composed of the two famous architects, but also of
members from New York, London and Frankfurt. In fact, we can consider the
building as an international accomplishment.
- the five wings are outstretched, not only in the aim
to integrate them into the landscape, but also in the aim to create a reminiscence
of the Louvre situated in Paris. Effectively, this last one is composed of
five departments : Islamic Arts,Antiquities, Sculptures, Medieval Art and
Modern Art .
- five wings, each one dedicated to a very specific
employment, more particularly in the aim to allow a specific place for the
local history and culture . They will be exhibitions of local Art, Classic
and Contemporary, with a regular renew.
- The "park", in the aim to respect the local
Natural environment, is fulfilled with rare and local plants, most of them
re-discovered with the help of the slag heap's typical flora. In the aim to
respect the place chosen for the building, no artificial garden or already
grown plants had been used. The park will not only give the impression to be
created by Nature's hands, it will really be natural. The only elements created
by Man's hands will be the road, the sitting places, the statues exhibitions
and a few flower pots, integrated to the earth's level.
- The facades of the building are merely entirely
composed of glass, in the aim to separate as few as possible the
visitors from the landscape. It is not only corresponding to a new type of
museum's architecture, it is also corresponding to the need to put in value
the region. It is still hard to say if the emplacement had be chosen in the
aim to create à link with the pinhead n°9, now monument classified as an
International Heritage by the UNESCO. Effectively, there is no way to know if
the place had been chosen because of the decision of the french ministry of
Culture to propose the site of Loose en Moselle to the UNESCO since 2004.
Nevertheless,
the museum is proposing different ways to enlighten the local Heritage. It
include a few symbolic decisions to remind discretely to the visitors the
national dimension of the museum, with a regular renew of the Louvre's
masterpieces and in the construction of the building itself. As far as we know
from personal experiences, even the car park problem, well known in Paris, had
been accidentally reproduced : the lack of car parks seems to already cause a
few problems to the Louvre Lens visitors.
III. Behind the museum : an experience influenced by many parameters
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| http://www.e-architect.co.uk/images/jpgs/france/louvre_lens_museum_t141112_3.jpg |
As we have said before, the museum is subject of both negative and positive critics. Let's have a look at some of them, more particularly the architectural choices made by SANAA's team.
First,
the Museum amongst Lens' habitations :
Effectively, the fact that the building is
flat, composed only of a ground floor and underground floors, is really helping
to have the impression that the museum is well integrated into the landscape.
But, a simple photography of the global aspect of Lens today, can, on the
contrary, enlighten the difference between local architecture and the museum
architecture : a place made of metal and glasses, in the middle of red houses,
typical from the worker's area built in the 19th – 20th. is
a bit unusual and particularly visible, even a bit out of tune.
Second,
the main interest of the building, the play with light, seems to be a great
idea, not only in the aim to highlight the natural local Heritage and to create
a parallel between the indoor and the outdoor. But, we must not forget that we
are here in the North of France, a place place well known for it's regular sunlight.
On the paper, and most of the time, the museum looks like this :
Unfortunately, during cloudy days, and rainy
days, the museum can possibly looks like this :
Which is increasing the sensation to be in a
shed, or a cold, dehumanized place.
It can provoke the sensation to be in a
surgical room, where nothing but the strict necessary is within reach. This
type of architecture might be adapted for a contemporary exhibition, but the
fact is that we are habituated to see classical exhibitions in a very old
fashioned monuments, presented with a coloured scenography.
The Time gallery is also as purified and
minimalist as the hall, very certainly in the aim to focus the visitor's
attention to the masterpieces only. Even if the walls are slightly curved, in
the aim to contrast sharply with the possible impression given by the gallery
to be in a shed, the purity of the design still can provoke a certain sensation
of comfortability.
Here is a detail of the curved walls :
 |
| http://www.e-architect.co.uk/images/jpgs/france/louvre_lens_t111212_8.jpg |
And here, a picture that can explain the
comparison with a shed or a surgical room :
You can notice the coldness brought out by the
us of metal on the walls and the use of only one colour for the scenography :
As you
can notice, the metallic walls are reflecting the visitors, as mush as the
masterpieces. The main idea was to create a physical link between them, in the
aim to bring visitors to a reflexion about themselves and Art. Moreover, as we
can see on the picture bellow, is the idea is good, the reality might be a bit
different :
As you can see, the reflexion is particularly
blurred, and according to people who had already visited the Time Gallery, it
is not only because this picture had been taken with a smartphone. The blur is
real, transforming people and masterpieces into shadows and ghosts.
If you combine this sensation with the form and
material used for the Time Gallery, it is perfectly explainable that some
people haven't got the impression to be in the Louvre satellite, or even worse,
that they feel ill – at – ease.
As a
conclusion, we can remind that the Louvre Lens museum is inscribed into a very
new approach of stage design, presented in a contemporary building. It is
effectively a new way to propose Art to visitors, nearly an opposite way from
the Louvre's stage design. Several types of greeting can be maid about this
approach, composed of different degree of positive and negative criticisms. The
only way to have your own is very certainly including a visit of the Louvre
Lens itself !
As a
funny digression and conclusion, we can remind an unknown and negative aspect
of the Louvre Lens, enlighten by the École du Louvre 's students on their humorous network tumblr :
NATHALIE MAES.
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