The Pompidou Centre closes: Modernising modern art’s Parisian HQ • FRANCE 24 English

The Pompidou Centre closes: Modernising modern art’s Parisian HQ • FRANCE 24 English

[Music] [Music] It’s the move of the century. More than 150,000 pieces of artwork have left the Pompadoo Center in Paris, which is closing its doors for 5 years. 5 years is too long, but it’s what’s required for a project of this magnitude. [Music] It’s a period of transformation for the center, but also a chance to show off its collections. The closure offers certain opportunities like being able to ask for exceptional loans. Masterpieces have been sent to new sites around the world to the delight of the public and experts. We are all using the museum’s closure to experiment with how we tell the story of modern art. [Music] In July 2025, the Pompadoo Cent’s final exhibition was dismantled in the main gallery space. Paintings from the Parinoir show were examined before being packed up and sent back to their homes. For the museum staff, it marked the end of an era and the beginning of a break from the routine. We’re feeling very nostalgic because we’re very attached to the museum. There’s a real family spirit here at the Ponidu Center, so it’s going to be hard for us to see the museum closed. We know it’s not a goodbye though, just a fivey year hiatus. But we’re already looking forward to its reopening. [Music] On the other floors, silence. The move began in March with the pieces that were the easiest to transport. Boasting some 150,000 works of art, the museum houses the most important collection of its kind in Europe. It’s second only to the MoMA in New York. They’ve left the largest installations for last, lifting them out using cranes. They’ll be returned to the museum’s storage rooms. [Music] Now it’s goodbye to the Bour District in the center of Paris for at least 5 years. [Music] 5 years is too long, but at the same time, it’s what’s required for a project of this magnitude on a building which spans 70,000 square meters. Bringing it up to spec involves three things. Firstly, removing asbestos. It’s a 1970s building in which asbestos was used liberally and it’s essential for the safety of the people who work there and for the visitors to remove this asbestos. Secondly, there is an environmental agenda and we expect to improve energy efficiency by 60% after the renovations are done. And finally, there’s a general overhaul of its cultural mission. The Pompedu Center hopes to raise €180 million for this cultural overhaul in addition to the €260 million that the government’s investing in asbestos removal. Considerable sums of money that should transform the site. We are in the main hall which will remain the public entrance in the future Pompidu Center but this will be enlarged to allow the public to go down the steps to a new space called the Agora which will contain exhibitions, cinemas and performances. On the right there will be a new generation hub offering activities for young people. On the left, there will be shops, bookstores, and a restaurant opening onto the city towards the Stravinsky fountain. And we’ll be adding the brand new library on the second and third floors. The collections on the fourth and fifth floors with a new layout. Then exhibitions on the sixth floor. And icing on the cake, the chance to go up to the roof of the seventh floor to admire the view. As one institution closes, another opens. The Pompadoo Center in the Paris region should be welcoming visitors at the end of 2026. The Pompedu Center of the Greater Paris region is a wonderful project that we’ve been working on for several years with two objectives. One, to provide a setting with the optimal conditions for conserving the artwork, and two, to create a small Pompedu Center in the middle of the Esson department, attracting school children and members of the public who do not come to Paris to visit the Pompidu Center, but who will have the opportunity to discover some of the collection in Messi. Making art a vibrant live experience accessible to all is the Pompadu Center’s central philosophy. At the heart of its 1970s design by architects Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano. A revolution that ruffled some feathers at the time. [Music] when it opened on January 31st, 1976. 7. The center’s director was Pontis Hulton. The Swedish curator had an eye for new talents and for innovative ideas. When the Pompedu Center opened its doors in 1977, it was a real event in Paris and even in the world because this type of cultural center didn’t exist then. Pontus Halton was instrumental in defining what the Piru Center was and he extended a rather exceptional invitation to two artists who he particularly admired and he had known since the 1950s, Niki Sanfal and Jeang. He invited them to create a huge installation in the Pompidu Center’s main hall. So the public arrived and saw a work in progress. That’s the anarchist side of the three of them, the two artists and Pontes Halton. Also making the public understand that by interacting with the work, individuals can feel free and autonomous. And so the Pompidu Center gave the public a completely new frame of reference and displayed an exceptionally open-minded approach. Now the work of artists Nikki de Salfal and Jean Tangri has been reunited with Pontis Hulton’s vision for a joint exhibition at the Grand Pal. And it’s here in this Parisian landmark that the Pompedu cent’s temporary exhibitions will continue to be held while construction work is taking place at the Bubour site over the coming years. This partnership was decided for two reasons. The timetable aligns very well since the Pompedu Center is closing in 2025 and the Grand Pal began to reopen in 2024 with the Olympic Games here. The second factor is the complimentary nature of our institutions. We will have access to one of the world’s largest collections of modern and contemporary art. And the Pompedu Center will have a venue that’s been refurbished that meets museum standards and that has a history of major exhibitions, indeed major national exhibitions. The Grand Pale is not the only cultural space to benefit from the Pompadoo C Center’s renovations. They’ve organized a program called Constellations, which sends exhibitions to other museums in France and abroad. One of those sites is the Pompadoo Cent’s offshoot located in Mess in the east of France. [Music] The metamorphosis of the Pompedu Center in Paris offers certain opportunities. One of them is being able to ask for exceptional loans and Breton Studio which is leaving Paris for the first time and comprises nearly 255 objects. We’ve also been given permission to host pieces that are sometimes fragile to transport and difficult to move such as Sonia Deon which is a painting on mattress ticking. So these are fragile items that have never left Paris before. Objects, paintings, and sculptures that up until now had been on display in the French capital. These are sculptures by Henry Moore and Henry Lawrence that were on the terrace of the Pompidu Center Paris and have now been moved here. We’re also undergoing a transformation thanks to Paris with a new exhibition space that we have incorporated into the architecture and history of the building here. [Music] Another major loan took place over the summer as the Pompedu Center transferred some of its masterpieces to the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco. In this circular space, the 20th century’s most renowned artworks have been arranged not by movement or period, but by color. [Music] We are all taking advantage of the Pompedu cent’s closure to experiment with how we tell the story of modern art. Modern art at the Pompedu Center was strictly chronological. And the experiment here is to break with chronology. Here you can see paintings from the 1910s alongside pop art from the 1960s, contemporary art from today and so on. We are breaking free from a number of rules and codes with a goal to perhaps finding new approaches to apply at the Pompetu Center when it reopens in 2030. The colors exhibition welcomed more than 75,000 visitors in less than two months. Proof that the Pompadoo Center continues to draw the crowds even hundreds of miles away from its iconic structure in Paris. [Music]

The Pompidou Centre in Paris will close its doors on September 22, 2025, for five years of renovations set to transform the landmark. While the closure will leave a noticeable gap in the Beaubourg neighbourhood, masterpieces from Europe’s largest modern art collection will continue to be exhibited across France and abroad through temporary shows and loans.
#PompidouCentre #ContemporaryArt #Museum

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