The Rouen art galleries have reopened – read our edition of Friday May 15 – but the museums have not. If government authorization has fallen for “small museums”, what about the eight establishments * of the Réunion des musées métropolitains (RMM)? And even when they are open, can exhibitions be held there? The answer with Sylvain Amic, director of the RMM.
The “ small museums “Had government authorization to reopen on 11 may. Does that exclude those from the Réunion des musées métropolitains (RMM) ?
Sylvain Amic : “The term small museum was used by journalists and sociologists in a column published in April. The museum community would have done well if the term had been taken up by the Prime Minister, but what must be remembered is the notion of a living area. The government wants to avoid the reopening of museums whose attendance is essentially national, even international, because it creates an undesirable mix. This is the case with the Caen Memorial or the house of Claude Monet in Giverny, but not the RMM museums, whose attendance is mainly local [plus de 40 % des 300 000 visiteurs viennent de la Métropole NDLR]. “
–
“Better distribute
attendance
on the day “
However, you have decided not to reopen the museums …
“Because the conditions are not met. We have a responsibility, vis-à-vis our agents, vis-à-vis visitors. And then a large part of our public is school: as the groups will not come, should we open the museums for a few dozen visitors? So we decided to take the time. Since May 11, the teams are gradually returning to the museums and on June 2, we will have enough time to see if the deconfinement is happening in good conditions, and thus reopen for the summer. Because I don’t see the point of reopening if it’s to close again three weeks later. “
Concretely, what must be put in place before the reopening to the public ?
“We have to review each step of the visit. The person arrives: is he asked to come with a mask or is it provided? Changing rooms and toilets, how often should they be cleaned? Is there a sense of circulation in the museum? And what is the gauge authorized in each room? If I take the case of the Museum of Fine Arts, there are large rooms, small, parallel rooms that require you to go through a large room … And if I speak of the Museum of Ceramics, there has only one staircase, whether you go up or down. One of the first things we will do, therefore, is to set up an online reservation system, to choose our visit niche. The challenge is to better distribute attendance over the day. “
Under these conditions, the Normandy Impressionist festival, which should have been launched on 3 April, can it still take place ?
“The decision to maintain or not this fourth edition must be collective. But what I can say is that the nine exhibitions held by the RMM and labeled Normandy Impressionist can be held. Why ? Because the model of the exhibition which brings canvases from all over the world, with a budget that is counted in millions, a model already weakened before confinement and now we can say toxic, today, this is no longer our model. Our exhibitions can open because we have considerably reduced the number of works that come from far away. If I take the expo The Herbarium of Giverny programmed at the Museum, we have only one loan outside France: it is in Switzerland. We don’t always have to ask for prestigious museums on the other side of the world, just to make it chic, there is a great wealth of works here too. So, even if loans from abroad cannot be honored, we will have very good exhibitions to show. “
–
“Our online offer has never been so interesting”
Yes, but when ?
“We have started working with lenders to postpone the loan dates for the works. We want to open this summer and extend the exhibitions until the fall. Especially since, this summer, the Normans may not be able to go on vacation very far, they will more than ever need to have fun as close to home. When the festival was created, we thought that Normandie Impressionniste would boost international tourism. However, we realized that attendance was primarily regional. So it doesn’t matter if the Americans, the Chinese or the
Ile-de-France cannot travel this summer, the Normans will be there. “
I imagine that you took advantage of the confinement to prepare the next exhibitions …
“Indeed, the program is closed until 2024! This period allowed us to go into detail, to deepen what we will offer to the public in the months and years to come. We will shift Le Temps from the collections devoted to the circus, and then we will inaugurate a season dedicated to Gustave Flaubert. We are also working on the fourth installment of our cycle on modernity [après Picasso en 2017, Duchamp en 2018 et Braque en 2019, Ndlr], with a surreal exhibition around André Breton and his book Nadja. “
During the confinement, the virtual offer was also considerably expanded, with the possibility of consulting the files of previous exhibitions, the files of the art library, works under the microscope …
” Yes our online offer has never been so interesting and we will continue! Our new virtual exhibit, on Jewish destinies during the Second World War [devait] be online on May 15. It was developed from the archives of the Fabrique des Savoirs in Elbeuf, with the assistance of Montreal and Marseille. It was an idea that we wanted to launch this year, but the containment gave a boost to the project, since we were able to take advantage of Frame network emergency fund. “
– – .
