In which we visit the Centre Pompidou and I understand nothing

One of our Grand Cultural Excursions, like the Musee d’Orsay (and our later trip to see Moliere’s Le Tartuffe) was a trip to the Centre Pompidou, the modern art museum. To give fair warning: I don’t like modern art. Some of it is quite cool and interesting and groundbreaking, but a lot of it seems like, to paraphrase David Sedaris, it’s the art of people with little talent and lots of drugs. If you can’t appreciate art for its beauty or meaning, or even care about it without a whole long explanation, then what’s the point?

This here’s the front of the building. I like the hamster-bubble-tunnel walkway on the front, but in general, I think it’s kind of hideous. I don’t have a picture of the back, but it looks like a massive factory was cut in half, with pipes leading to nowhere. I’ve definitely seen uglier buildings, but not many of them have been in Paris.


This is one of the views from the top of the hamster walk. And look! You can see my bedroom window! (And that's as much as I'm going to point out on the Internet.)


Another view, this time of the only skyscrapers in Paris. Everyone was very upset when they went up, and now, nothing is allowed to be taller than the Arc de Triomphe (which you can see, if you follow that street down to the horizon and look a little to the right).


Another view, this time with Notre Dame RIGHT THERE. It's about a 10-minute walk from my apartment, and some of that is stoplights.


One of the surrealists. I like the colors here; the pieces in this museum that I enjoyed were few, but this was one of them. Of course, now I can’t remember who it is.



I LOVED the mobiles. They’re very cool and pretty, and it’s very hard to get the halves as perfectly balanced as they are. Our tour guide (who was lots of fun, by the way: you could tell that she really loved the art and was really excited to work there, and even if I didn’t agree, I loved that) spent a couple minutes blowing on the hanging one trying to get it to move, and when it didn’t, she just gave up and tugged on one of the petals. We were all horrified/amused.


This was the first time I’ve had Picasso explained so I understood (ironically, it was in French): it’s all about movement. Rather than his subjects sitting still for all eternity, he’s painted this woman so that she appears to be constantly turning her head back and forth. Observe the fact that there’s a profile and yet, both eyes.


I just like the fact that there’s an outline of a hand on here. I’m not sure why it’s there or what it means, but I thought it was cool.


I’m not sure I completely understood the explanation of this (I definitely didn’t catch the artist’s name), but this is interesting. It was an artist who built himself a little house and locked himself in it, apart from all human interaction, for a year. Then he disassembled the building and sold pieces of it. While I think this is very interesting and useful – he pushed the limits of what people can do and plumbed the depths of human psychology – I’m not sure it counts as “art”. If he’d written a paper on it, he’d be a lauded psychologist, and deservedly so, but as it is, I’m kind of baffled as to why this is worth money.


This is a work by a suicidal artist meant to evoke intestines. Apparently, vertical represents human where horizontal represents nature. It’s all about emotions and stuff, and there was something about her mother in there, too. While I’m not sure I understand it, I can kind of get where it’s coming from.


This, on the other hand, I don’t get at all. There’s probably something about climbing to heaven, blah blah blah, but really, this is just gym class.


This was made by creating an “egg” out of terracotta, into which the artist pressed himself, fully clothed. You can even see the buttons on his shirt. Also, that bit up top where it’s kind of flattened except for the large round bit sticking out? Yeah, that’s the inside of his mouth.


While I think this is kind of cool, the rest of this room was filled with inflatable chairs. Apparently, this is art? I don’t know. This is why I’m not studying art history or working at a museum.


I got yelled at for accidentally forgetting to turn off my flash on this picture. I have no idea what it’s supposed to represent, but I think it looks cool.


This? I do not get. And there was absolutely no explanation of it – I looked, wondering what the significance of the numbers was. I have no idea.


This was painted using blue paint smeared on the bodies of naked women. I’ve had this explained to me as having nothing to do with the finished product and being all about the process of painting it.



These are my favorite things in the whole museum. I love European exit signs: they’re so dramatic. A WHEELCHAIR escaping FLAMES! It’s fantastic.


This is Julia outside a weird little hut thing which reminded me of the tree sculptures on the Quiet Green at Brown. Julia’s a senior art history major who is currently working on her honors thesis and studying for the GRE. She doesn’t like modern art, either. Vindication!

I forgot to take a picture of the fountain, which is full of sculptures by two artists, a husband and wife. It's pretty cool. I prefer his black metallic sculptures to her colored stuff, but it's a cool blend.

And that’s the Centre Pompidou! Next up, another lecture tour.