The Centre Pompidou-Metz was designed by Japanese architect Shigeru Ban and France's Jean de Gastines. It has a translucent white skin that glows at night, making it look like a spaceship. Others have compared it to a toadstool or a 'Smurf house.' (Seth Robbins/Stars and Stripes)
The Centre Pompidou-Metz was designed by Japanese architect Shigeru Ban and France's Jean de Gastines. It has a translucent white skin that glows at night, making it look like a spaceship. Others have compared it to a toadstool or a 'Smurf house.' (Seth Robbins/Stars and Stripes)
Visitors to the Centre Pompidou-Metz marvel at the elegant lattice of steel and wooden beams supporting the museum's undulating white roof. (Seth Robbins/Stars and Stripes)
From the museum's top floor, visitors look out of a grand window, which provides a panoramic view of Metz. If you go, walk back from the window and watch as the Metz cathedral grows larger, thanks to an optical illusion. (Seth Robbins/Stars and Stripes)
A series of Henri Matisse’s famous “cutouts,” which he made by cutting various colored paper into shapes and combining them into the final image. Matisse created these pieces late in his life when sickness and old age prevented him from picking up paint brushes for long periods of time. (Seth Robbins/Stars and Stripes)
The Centre Pompidou-Metz includes one of Niki de Saint Phalle's 'shooting paintings,' which she created by embedding plastic bags of paint in plaster and then shooting at the sculpture with a .22 caliber rifle. (Seth Robbins/Stars and Stripes)
A boy watches the famous moon landing in Georges Méliès’ 1902 science-fiction fantasy 'A Trip to the Moon.' A reinterpretation of the short film was showing in one of the of the side rooms, which provide a nice respite for museum walkers. (Seth Robbins/Stars and Stripes)
Art museums — with their hushed milieu, looming halls and reams of information — often give the impression that art is serious stuff. But the Centre Pompidou-Metz, France’s newest national art museum, dispels this feeling by making the experience more like a funhouse.
It starts with the museum’s design. Its roof of white skin, made of Teflon-coated fiberglass, looks like a tarp inflated by wind. The undulating structure is supported by a series of contorted and curved wooden beams that form an elegant lattice — Japanese architect Shigeru Ban claimed he was inspired by a hat, although a mushroom or a yurt could have as easily inspired him. At night, when the whole translucent structure glows, it resembles a spaceship.
Inside it’s hard to know exactly what floor you’re on, or which of the four gallery halls you’re in, with ceiling mirrors everywhere reflecting items from other floors. Corridors narrow and widen inexplicably, creating strange hiding places (usually accompanied by some art surprise), and tucked among sculptures and paintings are little nooks where you can sit and watch movies, most of them silent.
Georges Méliès’ 1902 science-fiction fantasy “A Trip to the Moon” is projected onto the ceiling in one gallery. And you can slip behind some curtains for René Clair’s 1924 film “Entr’acte,” which uses early cinematic techniques, such as slow motion and double exposure, to show scenes of ballet dancers and people chasing a hearse that goes hurtling through the suburbs. Rather than competing with the art, these installations complement it nicely.
Part of the French national museum system, the Centre Pompidou-Metz will never have a permanent collection. Instead it will mount temporary exhibits from the massive stores of France’s National Museum of Modern Art.
The museum has prolonged until Jan. 17 its grandiose first exhibit, “Masterpieces?” While there is little doubt that the nearly 800 works — a mother lode of Magrittes, Matisses, Picassos, Dalis and Man Rays — are 20th-century masterpieces, the question mark seems to ask visitors: What makes a masterpiece, and does it even matter?
Beside the more famous paintings, there are works that mock the art world. One is a tin can whose label reveals that its contents are 30 grams of “freshly preserved” excrement. On the can, Italian artist Piero Manzoni boasts that he sealed his own feces inside in 1961, and that its value is worth its weight in gold. He turned out to be right; one of the cans, of which he made 90, sold at auction in 2007 for 124,000 euros.
On the same floor as Manzoni’s can are a Matisse and a “shooting painting” by Niki de Saint Phalle, who created the work by embedding plastic paint bags in plaster. The plaster sculpture was then raised, and de Saint Phalle shot it with a .22 caliber rifle — the bullets piercing the paint bags, leaking their rainbow-contents over the mashed plaster. De Saint Phalle also invited her artist friends to fire a few rounds at the sculpture.
The works are made more interesting by the way they are displayed. You can enjoy a triptych by Joan Miró while sitting on a cozy banquette, imagining it to be your living room. A Jackson Pollock painting hangs next to Pablo Picasso’s “The Dawn,” and both are initially viewed together through a series of contorted windows.
Unlike other museums, it’s possible to enjoy the exhibits for hours, thanks to the many places to sit and relax, often in front of the works themselves. And with so much jokey stuff, it’s no wonder the museum is popular with children, who run around with barely a sideways glance from staff or go to workshops with activities just for them.
On the QTDIRECTIONS
Metz lies along Autoroute 31, north of Nancy and south of Luxembourg. You can drive there via the A4 (Paris/Strasbourg) and A31 (Luxembourg / Lyon) motorways; exit Metz Centre. It is an easy train ride, about an hour from Trier or Saarbrücken. A number of Deutsche Bahn ticket specials apply to Metz journeys, including Saar-Lor-Lux tickets that allow passengers to travel in Saarland, Lorraine and Luxembourg cheaply on Saturday and Sunday.
TIMES
The museum is open 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekdays except Tuesdays; on weekends it is open 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
COSTS
Tickets are 7 euros for those older than age 26, free for everyone younger and for those in various other categories. Audio guides delivered on an iPod cost 3 euros and give interesting facts about the artists and art, including some seedier details.
FOOD
There is an elegant restaurant on the second floor, and a full bar and casual cafe on the ground floor.
INFORMATION
The English-language version of the museum’s website is www.centrepompidou-metz.fr/site/?lang=en.
