Pompidou Centre

Short review of the newly re-opened museum of Modern Art at the Pompidou Centre in Paris


The Pompidou Centre has always been a raffish rogue amid the boulevards of Paris ... a candy coloured clown of a building which still has the power to shock more than 20 years after its invention by the young British architect Richard Rogers and his Italian partner Renzo Piano.

The two architects went over the top with their design - plotting a technicolor irruption among Parisian sobriety - never expecting to see it built. It was and, since then, Paris and millions of visitors have taken this modernist masterpiece to their heart.

It has become the most visited art collection in France... out pacing the labyrinthine Louvre, the coolly elegant Musee D’Orsay and such smaller gems as the Rodin or Picasso Museums.

Now after a brief absence behind mountains of scaffolding the Pompidou centre has been revamped -- with some losses and some gains.

Playfulness has always been the keynote. All those pipes and ducts painted in dayglo colours. The mood remains. Visitors now snake past a giant golden flowerpot on a plinth amid the street entertainers and, to one side, Niki de Saint Phalle’s wonderful water spouting modern sculpture’s intrigue visitors of all ages.

The first thing to say about a visit here is that children and teenagers are in for an even greater delight than it used to offer. The reorganised museum is a better than ever... and free to those under under eighteen. But more of that momentarily.

If you’re over that golden age, then you now have to pay for one terrific treat that used to be free - the view over Paris from the roof of the Pompidou Centre and from the plastic encased escalator ride to the summit.

Now to enjoy all that you must pay to visit the museum... the French National Museum of Modern Art. And to really enjoy the the view you must eat in the excellent if pricey restaurant on the roof.

With an admission price now in place, certain parts of the building remain free. The vast central arena, the children’s centre, design exhibits on the ground floor and the library (thought his would really be of interest only to those fluent in French and prepared to endure the vast crowds who use this resource.)

However the main attractions for teachers, children and school groups has to be the modern art and there is acres of the stuff. Comparisons with London’s hugely popular new behemoth Tate Modern are inevitable.

Fact. The Pompidou’s collection is bigger - the largest in the world actually - and richer than that in Tate Modern. It’s less fun to visit in a way for the curious curatorial jumble at the Tate - disguising the vast gaps in the collection - offers something a mystery tour with its occasionally bewildering juxtapositions.

By contrast the Pompidou’s collection has a chronological flow which makes understanding the story of modern art easier.

So where to start? At the beginning? Well then its a long wearying trek from a bold Rousseau painting that starts the journey of discovery to the playful art objects of our recent fin de siecle.

An innovation, now available at increasing numbers of museums is a hand held audio guide - available in English - which you key to head about selected works. Seeking out numbered works is one route through.

For younger children some of the earlier rooms may be less appealing ... as this offers the journey into abstraction in painting through the world of Picasso and Braque (play spot the difference - it takes a most expert eye) through all the great art movements of the troubled mid 20th century to the abstract expressionists of the middle third of the 20th century and beyond. Delights enroute include Dadaism, surrealism, Pop art, Op art and kinetics.

That’s all on the top floor. It’s more fun when you go downstairs for here are the zesty playful provocations of the last two or three decades - ideas about art exploding in all directions. Marcel Ducamp has much to be respoonsible for. here is his “Fountain” - a urinal.

Here is art you can climb on or in, installations involving whole rooms you can clamber into - Jean Dubuffet’s “Winter Garden” or gawp at in dread - an installation by the surrealist Dorothea Lange where the furniture is mutating onto nightmarish animals and body parts are bursting through the walls., video art and, lots which certainly won’t really stand the test of time.

It isn’t just the much hyped “Young British Artists” (who are thinly represented here) who take japes and jokes as the starting point for their work. There’s plenty here. Profund? It is hard to tell, but there’s a lot of fun to be had in studying art these days.