He did not move Dubuffet's enormous sculpture in Vitry.
On the other hand, he forced to move temporarily the one representing Rouget de Lisle in Choisy, as well as two giant statues in Ivry, the translucent figures of Jaume Plensa.
A everywhere between art and the T9 tram, the ball in the center.
But was there ever a competition?
Saturday at 11 am, the brand new tram will set off to transport its first travelers from Porte de Choisy, in Paris (13th century).
Before marrying for good the D5, this departmental road which crosses five towns in the Val-de-Marne, after years of preparations.
It is its “boulevard des arts”, so nicknamed by the region because of its well-rounded cultural offer, with exhibition venues, theaters, graffiti and works of the cultural 1%, in Vitry.
From Paris 13th to Orly, the route of the T9 Tramway offers real cultural diversity: museum, choreographic center, theaters, works of street art which have given the RD5 the nickname "boulevard des arts".
LP / Infrography
It is no coincidence that two of the nineteen tram stations were named after cultural facilities: the MAC VAL, the departmental museum of contemporary art and the Briqueterie, the department's choreographic center located in a street which Ivry and Vitry tiebreaker.
The Jean-Vilar theater in Vitry, at the edge of the route, could just as easily have been included.
But whether the name of the stations reveals it or not, art is never far away.
In Orly for example, a station bears the name of Gaston-Viens, former mayor and first president of the general council when the department was created.
A portrait of him by artist Ernest Pignon-Ernest can be found a few dozen meters away.
Paris, in 2017. Ernest Pignon-Ernest shows the portrait of Gaston Viens, former mayor of Orly, which he did for the town and which is now visible near the T9 line.
LP / Clawdia Prolongeau Fanny DELPORTE
Waited "for so long"
Namely, because with the health crisis, the works outside are for the time being the only ones that can be seen.
"We would have loved that the launch of the tram and the reopening of cultural venues coincided", explains the vice-president of the departmental council in charge of culture Evelyne Rabardel (PCF).
With the tram, "we will be able to descend at the foot of the Briqueterie and the MAC VAL, two major cultural facilities", recalls the elected.
In the “virtual tour” that the department recently offered, he recalled, for example, that behind the MAC VAL is the Michel-Germa garden, a “green setting” of over 10,000 square meters where there are also sculptures by the collection.
It remains for Evelyne Rabarel that there is no question of "sulking his pleasure", "because this tram has been awaited for so long!
".
If it is the “arts tram”, it is just as much, according to what she heard about, a “tram called Désir”, this film by Elia Kazan released in theaters 70 years ago.
It will in fact replace bus line 183, the increase in speed of which in recent years has not been enough to unload it.
It had "reached its limits in terms of capacity", explains one at IDF Mobilités, which recalls that the tram will "replace" it.
It will now take 30 minutes to connect Porte de Choisy to the city center of Orly, half the time than with the bus.
A thousand photos to immortalize his site
Of the 183 in circulation on the D5, this is part of the chapter which ends this Saturday morning, and which was immortalized thanks to a very particular artistic project, the photographic capture of the 11 kilometers of the “boulevard des arts”.
Entitled “Atelier11km24mois”, imagined by the Grand-Orly Seine Bièvre area, this project aimed to keep track of the D5 under construction.
Wider, this work then gave rise to the “Grand tour of the boulevard des arts”, an urban exploration festival along the future tram line.
The fact of knowing if this boulevard des arts really existed and if so, of what it was made, was at the heart of this project which gave rise to the edition of a photo booklet and the creation of a website. .
In November 2017, from Orly to Porte de Choisy, applied arts students took turns day and night for 72 hours to photograph the approximately 11 kilometers of “boulevard des arts” and keep track of it at one point T. LP / Fanny Delporte Fanny Delporte
"That was the purpose of our mission," recalls the visual artist Stefan Shankland, who thus led him to identify the cultural offer of this sector.
What emerges is that the “boulevard des arts” is both the manifestation of a “political will”, he explains, that of putting art forward, but also very concretely. a place of cultural "concentration".
"It exists for real and we have to keep it, support this skill on the territory", explains Stefan Shankland.
For him, from a cultural point of view, “the tram route is only the tip of the iceberg”.
With him, 70,000 people will take the “boulevard des arts” every day.
The “Boulevard des arts” site:
www.boulevarddesarts.fr