Pinault Collection - Bourse de Commerce

[kerouac2]

Some billionaires like to battle it out in the skies or outer space (Branson, Musk, Bezos, etc.)  French billionaires tend to engage in battle in the art world.  This has been going on for 30 years between Bernard Arnault (LVMH) and François Pinault (Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, etc.).  Arnault was even the richest man in the world for several hours on 24 May 2021 as Jeff Bezos did a brief stock market zigzag.  Pinault is a midget billionaire, since he is only the 23rd richest man in the world, but he has a bit more prestige.  He already has two museums in Venice while Arnault has only one, even though it is the spectacular Fondation Louis Vuitton.

Articles about the rivalry between the two are hilarious because they obviously have to do business with each other and have traded department store chains, big chunks of the textile and fashion industry, financial institutions, etc.  There are books about this, but I would imagine that most of them only exist in French.
  
A few years ago, Pinault snagged a lease on the Bourse de Commerce in the centre of Paris.  It is a magnificent building originally constructed in the 16th century for Catherine de Medici but rebuilt in the 18th century as the wheat market, where wheat was both stored and sold (imagine the rats back then).  It was even mentioned in Victor Hugo's novel about Notre Dame.  In the late 19th century it became the commodities exchange (which migrated from the stock exchange in the Palais Brongniart).  And in 1949 the city of Paris sold the building to the Chamber of Commerce, which occupied the building until just a few years ago.

The mayor of Paris offered a 50-year lease on the building to François Pinault in 2016, and they started work on it immediately.  Pinault's art collection is worth 1.25 billion euros and in spite of the two museums in Venice, most of his stuff is not on display.  So this new place gives him a little more breathing room.

The new museum opened at the beginning of this month, and I went to take a look today.  (Had to reserve 2 weeks ahead of time, and that is likely to get worse this year at least, and maybe even much worse when foreign tourists return.)  Pinault spent about 150 million euros on the renovation, which isn't too shabby for a building that he does not even own.

The interior is a huge open space under a rotunda.

in case anybody needs a closer look

[kerouac2]

The stuff on the ground floor is a work in progress being covered by and/or made of candle wax.





These are airline seats (economy class)





Billionaires can do whatever they want with their money. Meanwhile, I was wondering what used to be on display in the original wooden cases here.







An original barometer was still here.

[tod2]

Very interesting Kerouac. The building is beautiful, the artwork around the dome looks wonderful, even the mosaic tiled floor is a work of art. I love the statue of three people - enormous glutes and all....but then I become a very stupid art critic as I don't like all this new out of the box stuff called art. If I went with someone who knows all about modern art etc. I might appreciate it more. The barometer face is fab.

[kerouac2]

I climbed higher because that's where the real stuff is.



There was a multitude of odd photographs.









Here were (almost) 100 identical photographs of cups, representing the 100 senators of the United States.





My cup runneth over. The Helms Admendment was voted in 1988.





Sometimes I felt as though the other visitors were posing as part of a giant art installation.

[kerouac2]

finally some paintings. Remember, this is modern art.









It is quite nice that attendance is still limited until the end of the month. Who knows how crowded it might get after that?

[kerouac2]

Fight!

















another glance at the central ceiling from one of the balconies

[kerouac2]

All of the display rooms had chairs that you didn't really look at, assuming that they were just the rest chairs for the guards. Wrong.

















It must have been strange when all of these were offices.







another "rest" chair

[kerouac2]

There are nice views at the top. The museum restaurant opens tomorrow up here.





time for me to go back down





The pigeons are artificial!







And that completed this first visit. One last painting, which is actually the first one you see when you enter.

[bjd]

I wonder whether Pinault chooses all the stuff himself. Some is okay, but some of the paintings are nightmarish.

[kerouac2]

The question is: what do billionaires really do?

[tod2]

Yes, what? Create something maybe some person might imagine is fabulous but knowingly they know is shite. To me it is a part of escapism - You don't want to see what is classed as "normal" You want something weird. exciting and definitely out of sight!

[kerouac2]

In any case, art needs to be challenging or else we will only have the posters that teenagers put in their rooms and the paintings on velvet of lurid sunsets, galloping horses or kittens in a basket, perhaps statues of Justin Bieber or Angelina Jolie.

When you think of how much impressionism or cubism were despised, it just goes to show that tastes can be educated over time.

Obviously, I'm not saying in advance that anything in the Pinault collection is immortal, but I was very glad to have had the privilege of seeing it.

[bjd]

I think Tod is right and it helps to have someone knowledgeable explain the background, the contexte and the painting or sculpture or installation.

[kerouac2]

Well, at this place, there are explainers to take people around every 20 minutes.

[lagatta]

I liked the enthusiastic fellow doing laundry. Otherwise in general I preferred the visit to the building to most of the exhibits. There have always been flocks of pigeons around there - I guess because of Les Halles.

I would like to visit the restaurant even if just for a coffee, because everytime I've been there I've thought the view from that rotunda must be lovely.

[fumobici]

I had walked by the bourse a couple of times and there being no public admittance wondered what was inside it. The central rotunda feels a bit like the one in The British Museum, better suited as a museum of perhaps a library than a government office building for sure. I like most of the artworks without really loving any of it, but that's still a good score chez moi and I'm sure I would have enjoyed taking in the displays. Thank you for satisfying an old curiosity.

[kerouac2]

Jun 9, 2021 17:46:21 GMT lagatta said:

I would like to visit the restaurant even if just for a coffee,

I don't know if they will continue to do so, but today they were serving coffee free of charge to anybody who wanted it at the lookout point. There was also a large cistern of water with hundreds of cups for non coffee drinkers.

[htmb]

I’ve wanted to go inside ever since I heard about the renovation. While some of the art is interesting, the building appeals to me more than anything.

[kerouac2]

I think that is going to be the case for most Parisians because everybody feels an attachment to the Bourse de Commerce but nobody feels an attachment to François Pinault or anything he does (except maybe struggling artists).

[tod2]

Kerouac - Your photo of that long copper-looking chandelier in the stairwell is wonderful. You brought back some memories of our last Paris trip when we went and had a look at Les Halles for the first time since it's completion. Down the long siz-zag pathway, right near the end are the public toilets. Too few for such a big area and remember having to stand in line crossing my legs for dear life.
What are those wires running along the top of the balcony? Pigeon repellents? I see they are going to be cleaning up a lot of pigeon poo inside...

[kerouac2]

Artifical pigeon poo perhaps, since the pigeons are fake.

I don't know about those wires at the top of the building. They are not for (real) pigeons since they always use those thorny spikes everywhere.

There are no fewer than five sanisettes along the Saint Eustache side of the garden, and of course numerous public restrooms down in the Forum. Of course it's all much easier when you know exactly where they are placed.

[tod2]

I'm relieved to hear those pigeons are fake! And about more toilets at Les Halles.

[lugg]

I climbed higher because that's where the real stuff is.
Love the photo below but many are great and all interesting.

A feast for the yes. I quite like some of the paintings and sculptures and can see how an " explainer" would enhance the visit; I really don't get the cup series at all. What a stunning building though. Thanks for taking me there.