Bourse de Commerce And The Pinault Collection

Why the Pinault Collection, you ask, for our European Night of Museums? Two reasons: 1) it was the only one Vicki could find tickets for when we were roaming the South Island back in February, and, 2) we knew a bit of the collection, enough to know that we definitely did not want to pay to see it. We are not big fans of contemporary art, at least the stuff you see in museums. Plus, we knew we could do it in short order and not have to stay out way past our bed-times.

Two great shots of the Bourse de Commerce from aloft (off the web)

Dating from the 18th century, it was originally the grain market, at
the other end from the vast Les Halles market; then it became part of
France's stock market; totally redone and renovated in the 21st century,
along with Les Halles; and now a museum of contemporary art

Over the entry

Helpful model #6,328

The first of many very large paintings and installations, Frank
Bowling's Texas Louise, from his Map Paintings series; if you can't
paint well, I always say, paint big; a similar dictum applies also
to contemporary (popular) music: if you can't play well, play loud

Helpful map of the paintings and installations

Animatronic mouse involved in some sort of soliloquy;
at this point Vicki announced she'd already gotten the gist
of it all and was ready to go back home; animatronics
seem to be a growing segment of contemporary art...
perhaps I should re-think my attitude toward Disney...

But I wanted to see the building; alas, the array of contemporary
art permitted only glimpses here and there

Cy Twombly was well represented; of course

Huge kelp cocoons inside of which assorted animatronic critters
were flitting around; Anita Yi is the artist; I'll spare you the profundity
underlying these creations

The dome; alas, created before art nouveau

Lined up to gaze into Robert Gober's Waterfall; something about
nature and culture; and gazing

Vicki's turn

What you see; I let my phone do the gazing for me

Thus; we have decided that if you can write a good
paragraph of artistic gibberish, you can slap anything 
up on the wall and they will call it art; perhaps, after
you die, someone will pay millions for it

Gimme that old-time art and architecture

Closer up; note Old Glory there; the pigeons on the railing are
artificial; more profundity; nature and culture again?

Ever more profundity

This one almost appreciable

The profundity spills out onto the walls; actually it's the capitalist
and imperialist history of the building that is oozing out (seriously)

Another humongous painting, see below for explanation

Click to enlarge; click twice to skip

Beautiful old marble floor over which we walked on
our way out into the night