Small museums, great perplexity. They weren't expecting it. Many owners of these less frequented buildings than Orsay or Pompidou fell from the clouds while listening to Edouard Philippe, Tuesday afternoon, announcing that the "small museums" could reopen on May 11. Less than two weeks to prepare, when information or rumors circulating in the community evoked a partial recovery on May 25, or even June 15. "The announcement surprises me because it was said here that the state was mainly concerned with finding a solution for the Louvre and Versailles, which are losing a lot of money," said a well-informed official.
None of the supposed "small" museums joined after the Prime Minister's speech had been made aware of the announcement beforehand. Those who depend on public supervision cannot react officially, but they scratch their heads: "What is a small museum? We are all asking the question. It is not a label, reacts the employee of a jewel very frequented the summer in Brittany. Is it the size, the number of visitors, the size of the museum team? It is the total unknown. We are waiting for the next meetings. "
It also depends on the status. The Paul Valéry Museum, in Sète (Hérault), depends on both the municipality and the Ministry of Culture with its label "Musée de France", which groups together around 3000 establishments. Its director, Maithe Valles-Bled, also seeks to assess the size of her establishment, which receives 65,000 to 110,000 visitors per year: "In museums, there are adults, children, but above all a lot of resources ... She says. She had already moved her summer exhibition, "Paul Valéry and the painters", back to school. She will reopen when her guardianship suggests it to her, with four contemporary artists whose works were only visible three days before confinement.
"Petit", the Brou Monastery, both a monument and a museum with a rising reputation, near Bourg-en-Bresse (Ain)? Pierre-Gilles Girault, the administrator, wonders, with his 100,000 visitors a year. “We understood that the Louvre and Versailles were going to have to wait. But for us, the gray area is still quite wide. There is no definition of a small museum. It’s a lot of questions. ”
"Provide masks rather than refusing a ticket"
Including the deadline. "I'm delighted, but how do we organize ourselves?" No one imagined such a short time between the announcement and the reopening date. We must prepare to welcome the public under special conditions. We are working hard on a plan to resume activity, even if we were not on that horizon. We may be concerned by the announcement, because half of our visitors are from the region. So they will have the right to come ... "
Jean-Louis Andrade, who directs the Picasso museum in Antibes (Alpes-Maritimes), is more formal: reopening on May 11 is impossible. "To count on June 2 seems more reasonable to me," he calculates. There is the problem of the equipment to be adapted. There are no more Plexiglas in France at the moment, so we will have to buy some elsewhere to protect the reception staff. And we will have to provide additional masks for visitors who have forgotten to buy them, rather than refusing them a ticket… ”
"All of our summer exhibitions have been canceled"
For him too, a small museum, "that doesn't mean anything", but he sees at least one positive point in the speech of the head of government: "Until Tuesday, we had no idea of anything. Museums were never cited in government interventions. "In Antibes too, we will have to be content with - very beautiful - permanent collections:" All our summer exhibitions have been canceled, as in three quarters of the museums in France ".
That of the Montmartre museum in Paris will take place. But when? The exhibition Otto Freundlich, a pioneer of abstraction, closed due to confinement after a fortnight, has been extended until January 31, 2021. Except that this private establishment but whose walls belong to the City of Paris awaits him also more information. The City has many cocoon museums, from Maison Balzac to that of Romantic Life, located in private mansions. The organization that oversees them does not communicate for the moment.
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On the Riviera, a school director has already given up on 2020: “It's not going to be comfortable. Will people want to see works with a mask and controlling the physical distance in our small rooms? Before going to the restaurant, taking off the mask just long enough to swallow your main course… No, it’s done, business will really resume in 2021 ”.
VIDEO. Deconfinement: what to remember from the speech of Edouard Philippe