A Day at the Pompidou

Sorry it has been so many days since my last post – the only excuse I have for my absence from the internet is: I’m in Paris.

But fear not, for I have not abandoned thee.

I come to you with photos of my outing this Saturday afternoon in a beautiful area of Paris known as Le Marais and Beaubourg, home of Le Centre Georges Pompidou – the building that has me on permanent drool mode.

A little bit about the Centre: This building, named after former French president Georges Pompidou, was designed by a group of architects from various European countries for an architectural design competition in the early 1970’s. The concept of the building was to take the ideas of what a building is and should be, and completely flip those ideas inside out and upside down. All of the functions of the building are on full display as a sort of exoskeleton – the pipes, tubes, escalators, and all of what should normally be hidden between walls is placed outside for the world to see.

Inside this building, you can find a museum, movie theater, library, bookstore, and many other interesting things that are worth exploring. On Saturday, I went to the museum (which I would say is the main attraction of the building, other than the building itself) and saw Modern and Contemporary art exhibits bursting with delicious joys for my eyes to feast upon. I also came across a Surrealist Photography and Film exhibit hidden on the Fifth floor which I found to be a very strange, eerie, and funny exhibit – sounds much like surrealism to me.

Here are some photos of some of the art that I saw. You might recognize some? Hope you like. Some of these bring me memories of my History of Modern Design class (See my first three posts on the blog for more on this).

A Frida Khalo! It was tiny, but it was enough =)

Picasso

Another Picasso

Chagall

Marcel Duchamp!

"The Fountain" - By Marcel Duchamp

(I was so excited to see this! I mean after all, Dada did inspire me to create this blog. Again, read first few posts in August to understand more.)

Cool mirror at the entrance of the Surrealist Photography Exhibit

This was at the entrance of the Contemporary and Modern exhibits. It was called "Elles" or Them[female], since most of the contemporary exhibit was dedicated to females and female artists. Hence some of the very blatant feminist works you can see above. But this - its the name of many important modern artists, but made into the female versions of their names. ie "Annie Warhol", "Miss van der Rohe", and "Marcelle Duchamp. Interesting....... Something to chew on.

A view of the escalators from one of the balconies.

A view of the Centre Pompidou from outside