TRAVELER’S DIARY-Paris VI:Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris

We started our tour at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris visiting two exhibitions, one truly very good and one very bad. But the important thing in this Museum is its Permanent Collection, where we will really focus through our own tour on what really touched our interest.

By Efi Michalarou

At the entrance of the Museum we meet a work by Loucio Fontana, but not from these that we are used to “Structure N Neon Pour La IXe Trienale  di Milan” (1951). From this work Sheila Hicks was inspired for her own, also magical, but completely different “Au-delà” (2017). Going down to the first level where the Permanent Collection of the Museum is unfolding chronologically, welcomes us the breathtaking “La Danse Inachevée” (1931) by Matisse, and in the next room another museum-sized work of the artist is in dialogue with Daniel Buren’s “Mur De Peintures” (1966-77). The following artworks are not the most important or the most impressive works of the Collection, walking, with the Eiffel Τower and the Seine to appear crystal clear from the large windows of the museum, our path is defined by the staircase that lead us two levels below, at the basement ant the SALLE BOLTANSKI, this place is the reason I came back to the museum. I wanted to get into the aura of Christian Boltanski’s works and to see again some even contemporary artworks in other spaces. Descending the two levels while the space is almost dark, your mind is illuminated by the four works created by the Artist specifically for space. “Réserve du Musée des Enfants I” (1989), the artist is ahead of his era. With this artwork Boltanski, placing stacks of children’s clothes on dexion storage racks, addresses all the political and social issues that concern us today in relation to children: Hunger, Poverty, Violence, Exploitation, is an installation-slap in the face of us all. Also dramatic and in direct relationship is the work in the next room “Réserve du Musée des Enfants ΙI” (1989), it consists of his well knoen photographs of persons, but τhey belong to children. On the opposite wall that is painted black a step leads us to discover through a keyhole the objects hanging in a theater of shadow and absurd the installation “Théâtre d’ Ombres” (1984-1997), that bears witness the fears and concerns of children, children’s toys and nightmares. Τhe faces of the visitors have an expression of bewilderment, the truth is that these works are so powerful and catalytic,  that puts them in a state of embarrassment, for this reason they are quickly moving to the last room, which is the simulation of a library “Les abonnés du telephone” (2000), it is perfectly normal for the  visitors to stay in this place for a longer time, because this artwork tranquilizes and calms them down, but for the artist the human presence here was reduced to its simplest expression: a surname. After Boltanski’s works I feel so full that I am feeling the desire to leave, nevertheless I decide to stay and re-discover some artworks more, playing with the delicate balances of my emotions.