contemporary monkey

Palais de Tokyo: where caring goes to die

Thank the Art Gods on High for someone in the universe who is watching over each and every one of us gallery hustlers and museum freaks who just don’t have enough time in the day. Enough time in the day to pore over, wrestle through, sneer at and wonder through as much contemporary art as our brains can digest (if that’s what brains could actually do). It can’t all be absorbed by one man on a stiff budget in an average lifetime of wine, art and song. No one person can do it all; gallery-hop like they’re an escaped banker, buying airline tickets like its beer on a Friday afternoon. For that, we are hereby and forever in your debt, kind sir or madam, M. Curator, for what is probably the least impressive collection of art in the known and unknown universe: the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. You have killed my soul. Prepare to die.

I give you, the fellow art traveller, full permission to strike it off your list of places to see before you leave this earth. I can confidently state that the Palais de Tokyo is not part of any travel diary with the words “un-missable, must-have, once in a lifetime”. Or, if it must remain on your bucket list, surely its just and true place is behind the largest sisal twine ball in Darwin, Minnesota. It might then all make sense, this crazy life of yours. Ball of string: check. OK then, we’re off to Paris for the one cultural dustball that will finally put me six feet under. Who wants whiskey?

Having just returned from visits to both the Musee d’Art Moderne de la Ville De Paris and the Palais de Tokyo (they are separated by only a cafe - of course they are, it’s Paris). The difference couldn’t be more stark. French roast on one side, decaf on the other. On the Musee d’Art Moderne side: a thriving art hive of busy public-ness, of well-intentioned learning for French and non-French alike, of well-lined walls and floor space with, well, modern and contemporary art. Administered by friendly locals throughout (are we still in France?), I am amongst the coherently curated thread of an argument, an idea, a point posited by the curator, using pieces from the Musee d’Art Moderne’s collection and non-collection alike. Fortune has looked favourably upon me, for I have used my depreciating roll of money wisely. I shall eat this evening.

Musee d'Art Moderne de Paris: warning, contains more life

On the other hand, and the other side of the cafe, there’s the Palais de Tokyo. A static storehouse of forgotten and rotting art pieces, watched over by what appear to be three former bank security guards on holiday; standing, smoking, chatting with each other in France’s most ill-fitted suits. They look more at home inside a Metro underground station.

And of course, there’s the art - sort of. While the programme title promises a solitary thought by way of its title, “Dynasty”, the truth is the pieces appear to be more “We give up, see what you can do with it”. The video and wall lighting installations are either not working, or possibly that’s the point of the show: the ‘dynasty’ of 21st century western values, slumped to an unworkable heap of electrical cords that someone has pulled from the wall. Nobody is even trying here. Alongside the pieces are the lazy curator’s old friend, the unhelpful and completely worthless label, “Untitled. Mixed Media. 2010″. Gee thanks, now I completely understand where I am in the universe of modern man. The continual struggle for meaning and identity.

The Palais de Tokyo itself, the building that is, not the vacuous anti-life inside, is a promising space. It’s not polished, it’s not shaped like a former power station, and it’s not designed by a 21st century starchitect. It’s simply a beat-to-hell space, and a very large one at that. Unfortunately, the space is so large it reveals the weakness of whomever is supposed to be upholding the responsibility of public service. Unless you count driving foot traffic over to the Musee d’Art Moderne as a civic duty. Which, in this case, I’m willing to support.

“A Brief History of Curating” is a title recently published in 2008 containing interviews with about a dozen so-called legendary 20th century curators.  Strangely, all were born between 1919 and 1943, making them 65 to 89 years old at time of publishing.  If they’re still alive.  The interviewing happened between 1996 and 2008, but the fact is that nearly all could be considered curators for the mid-20th century.  So a brief history, it isn’t; unless you consider the 1990’s onward a vacant lot of contemporary art curatorship.

brief...and narrow

What struck me about reading the curators’ memoirs, was the anonymity of so many artists.  While a great deal of well-known modern artists were included in these long-ago shows, many more, long-forgotten names were included as well.  I hadn’t heard of 75% of the artists mentioned.  I think this reflects just how splintered the art world is.  In many other aspects of our lives, we can all name a top ten of some industry, or popular culture like music, film, literature, etc.  Visual artists are truly living the Warholian experience by being, at best, famous for a very short time.

Curating a show is by nature a relatively anonymous production anyway.  Only a certain type of person, who might have heard about the show, who lives near the exhibition, and is alive during a one to three month time frame, is going to see it.  Of that very small group, how many people are going to appreciate it or understand it? (Let’s face it, artists aren’t the world’s best communicators.)  What percentage will just say it was complete rubbish.  I realize this isn’t a very optimistic deduction process, and the candid results from this type of analysis would preclude anyone from doing anything ever again.  Still, it seems that curating could do with a little broadening of its distribution.

The best exhibitions are ones that affect the greatest number of people, regardless of the message and sophistication of the audience.  Whether it’s crass, antagonistic, violent, sexy, or even easy, affecting a large number of people will always result in a changed behaviour in the world.  Affecting very few people, won’t.  It’s simple maths, regardless of what anyone else thinks.

One of the museums of Disney

That’s why I think the greatest curator of the 20th century is Walt Disney.  Walt, and his team, not only created their own art, but devised the exhibitions as well: animated films, books, TV shows, Disney World.  Disney even did his own voice-overs.  He was also heavily involved in art education, bequeathing 25% of his fortune to The California Institute of the Arts, which places him amongst heavy spenders like national public galleries and museums.   Disney arguably did more for art in the 20th century than any curator did in fine art.  Even by today’s standards of investment and spending, the Japanese pop artist Takashi Murakami, with his KaiKai Kiki LLC company, pale in comparison.