La Nuit des Musées!

Remember how France was going to make all the museums free entry to students starting in April? Well I found out that this was only halfway true. It was meant for French students only, meaning people like me either have to wait until the first Sunday of the month to see a national museum for free, or just suck it up and pay.

Boo! We are NOT amused!

But I did get the opportunity to stick it to the French government (sort of) by going to the Nuit des Musées, meaning 'night of the museums'. On this night in particular, several participating museums opened their doors to anyone and everyone from around 6pm to midnight, and the best part was that it was free!


I've had my eyes set on a few museums that I've never been to: the Pompidou Center (the big one that has multi-colored piping all over it), the Pantheon (the one that looks like the US Capitol building and is where all the famous French authors are buried), and the Grand Palais (it's a giant glass building on the Champs Élysées). And some others too, but one thing at a time, people.

Unfortunately, the Pantheon wasn't participating, so I planned my night around the other two.

First stop: the Pompidou Center for some modern art!

Here's the entrance to the museum. The line-up to get in was pretty long, but it moved quickly.





They had the upper floors open for the night where they keep the permanent collections. Photos weren't allowed for most of the sections but I did manage to snap a few pictures of the entrance.





There was a pretty big crowd while I was there, and some people even brought their kids.






I was really impressed with most of what I saw. I'm not particularly a fan of modern art, but I can appreciate the pieces that are different enough to grab your attention, and especially if it's obvious that the artist put a lot of thought and effort into their work. Even if it does come out as a large woman hanging on the wall with her underwear showing.

There was also a temporary exhibit of children's toys from the 1920s (I think that's the right decade). They were made out of bent wires, and looked like whimsical little things you hang from the ceiling.

And of course, there was art that I didn't understand. For example, one of the rooms was filled with paintings in which the artist probably used a rolling brush to paint a single color on the canvas. And that's it. If that's art, then me and my mom are artistic geniuses because we painted our entire house using a rolling brush! Geez...





The architecture was pretty interesting, though. The escalators in the building are on the outside in a glass tunnel, so you can see some nice views of Paris as you go up and down.





See? Here's a view towards the Eiffel Tower (it's the glowing spire thing in the distance) with one of the escalator tunnels on the left.

Here's another view from a balcony outside.

And another! It was a really nice night. By the way, the glowing thing in the distance on the right is the Sacré Coeur cathedral.



After the Pompidou Center, I went to check out the Grand Palais for the first time!

This was at the entrance! They had a temporary exhibit for Andy Warhol on the other side, but the line was incredibly long for that (I guess the French love Andy Warhol), so I went around to the front instead. All I wanted to do was see the inside, but I found out that they were showing another temporary exhibit there, called La Force de L'Art (the force of art).

(By the way, my friend Emily actually did see the Andy Warhol exhibit and posted about it. The link is on the right if you want to read it.)

Here's another view of the entrance. Pretty big, right?

So here's something I didn't expect! I thought there'd be some rooms and several floors inside the Grand Palace, but no... just a vacant exhibition hall!

It was huge inside too! Here's a view of the ceiling.

This exhibit really impressed me. It was modern art done on a larger scale, meaning full-room installations and sometimes even bigger than that. The best part for me was that the stuff I saw was so imaginative and so bizarre that every now and then I caught myself gaping in awe at what I was looking at. I really like the kind of art that catches you off guard and just makes you say "whoa".

This piece was basically a room cut in half. There was also slashed furniture everywhere as if someone came in completely pissed off and with a chainsaw.





This one was supposed to represent protesters. The little hands were on wheels that made them bounce up and down.





The giant green wall with the claw marks was supposed to be like a marking of a prehistoric monster of some kind, as if the creature was still alive. Creepy...

This one was a room with cartoon-like drawings all over the walls.

And this one was like a snowflake palace! See that orange thing in the center? I think that was supposed to be a carrot nose for the 'snowman' standing in the middle of the room.




Most of the collection was just interesting, but some of it made me feel like Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole...



Here's something bizarre... imagine plastic waste bins melted and painted blood red to look like a load of fresh carcasses hanging from the ceiling!





...Or a garden of sideways trees and little tooth-shaped tables surrounded by a curtain of green silly string!



...Or a giant black cube thrashing around like a caged animal! This one was a bit scary in person (listen closely to hear what sounds like growling):


Whoa.

And this is what happens when you drink on the job.

(Or take in other substances) :P

Hmm, 'violent extasy' you say?

This one was pretty cool: the artist went to China and took thousands of pictures, blew them up to be poster-size, and then stacked them on top of each other to make a giant photo kebab, similar to the real ones you see in Turkish restaurants all over Paris! But the best part was that you could go up to it and cut off your own 'slice' of the kebab with the knives attached to the installation.

Here's a video of some people doing that:

The result was a confetti of photos, but I liked the concept of it!




After I saw everything in the Grand Palais, it was midnight already. But on the way home, I managed to see one last thing:

This is the Monnaie de Paris, or the Paris Mint, and it was lit up all night for the event!






I didn't go inside (coin collections don't interest me much), but hey, look at the bubbles!!! :D


So maybe I didn't exactly stick it to the French government for discriminating against us foreign students. But it was still fun. :)

Bisous XOXO