Center Pompidou: a petition calls not to close the museum

The saga linked to the futures works of the Center Pompidou continues. After the staff strike, which blocked the museum intermittently for three months this fall, it is the turn of personalities from the world of culture to step up to the plate in the face of this project now imminent – with the move supposed to begin in October, just after the Olympic and Paralympic Games…

Last weekend, 20 artists, politicians and personalities from the world of culture have launched a petition (slipped into the supplement Le Figaro and You from the edition of Figaro of Saturday June 15) calling President Emmanuel Macron and Minister of Culture Rachida Dati not to completely close Beaubourg for five years. It is in fact planned that this Parisian center of culture will close its doors from 2025 to 2030, due to a major asbestos removal and renovation project… Thus depriving tourists and residents of one of the most important art museums modern and contemporary in the world for half a decade.

A closure with “disastrous consequences”

“We, professionals of art and culture, concerned about France’s rank in the world, would like to express our deep concern and our incomprehension. »

“This is a major attack on the cultural life of our country. It is even a serious fault”, are indignant the signatories who include among others the artist Daniel Burenthe gallery owner Daniel Templon, the former president of the Center Pompidou Alain Seban, the collector and businessman Jean Claude Gandur, art critics Catherine Millet and Nicolas Bourriaudthe former Minister of Culture Jacques Toubon, the former Prime Minister Manuel Valls, or even actress Julie Gayetwife of former head of state François Hollande.

“We, professionals of art and culture, concerned about France’s rank in the world, would like to express our deep concern and our incomprehension”, they write. According to them, the closure of Beaubourg, while “leaving the field free to the private sector” to the detriment of “public service”, will have “ disastrous consequences on a cultural and educational level but also in the living center of the capital.”

Although “necessary”, the work “can and must”, according to them, “be carried out in a fragmented manner, without completely closing the entire site.” “ Solutions exist : move out of the main building everything that is not open to the public; move the collections up and down the floors as the work progresses […] », they plead, leaving an email address ([email protected]) intended to collect future signatures.

A petition from residents and traders

This petition follows an article published on May 14 in The worldwhere the gallery owner Daniel Templon already denounced “a fault” and “an incredible waste”. “After the Louvre and Versailles, it is the Center Pompidou that foreigners target as a priority,” recalled the art dealer, who added that “the site does not contain friable asbestos,” which would make it possible to “continue to welcome visitors and staff safely” during the work.

In 2021, a petition from residents, traders and local elected officials had already been launched on Change.org against this closure, its signatories fearing that this situation would lead to numerous bankruptcy filings by businesses already weakened by the health crisis. A local brewery owner then declared to Parisian having lost 40% of its turnover during the previous closure of Beaubourg for works between 1997 and 2000 – even though the latter had been carried out in installments to avoid a complete closure…

Works presented in nearby galleries?

At a pharaonic cost of 260 million euros financed by the Statethis project, if it continues as planned, will first lead to the closure of the Center Pompidou performance halls at the start of 2025, then that of the museum and the library from March, and, finally, exhibition spaces in summer 2025for a period of five years.

“There has to be work. The work is extremely important,” replied this Monday, June 17 on Sud Radio, the Minister of Culture Rachida Dati. However, she claims to have “met the association of traders but also gallery owners who are around the Center”, and to have already planned (a decision dating, she says, before the announcement of the dissolution of the National Assembly by Emmanuel Macron) a “program” allowing works usually exhibited in Beaubourg to be presented “in nearby galleries” – and this in addition to other exhibitions already announced, notably at the Grand Palais or at the future center of conservation and creation which is scheduled to open in 2026 in Massy. Not sure that the signatories are satisfied with this answer…