Paris: Maillol Museum, 100,000 visitors and record attendance
With a broad smile, long strides, a man rushes over a forty-something in the process of taking his entrance ticket to the Maillol museum: “Dear sir, welcome, you are the 100,000th visitor and I am giving you a present! »…. The first is none other than Olivier Lorquin, the president of the small museum on rue de Grenelle, the second is called Franck, comes from Avignon, and took advantage of a visit to Sciences-po, a few streets from here, to discover “Le monde de Steve McCurry”, the first and sublime Parisian retrospective ever offered to the American photographer. The scene was rather comical, this Tuesday morning in front of the ticket office, and its joy says a lot about the atmosphere that reigns in the rooms and offices since the reopening of the museum.
The MC Curry exhibition fills up
“I believe in miracles, McCurry is a magician because he makes people happy! “, ignites Olivier Lorquin, for whom “This exhibition gives emotion. McCurry pierces the soul of the people he photographs, he is a great humanist, and the emotion he brings to everyone is the most beautiful reward… I live in a state of grace as I have little known, in 1988 with Frida Kahlo, where people were crying because they couldn’t get in on closing night, and in 2006 with “The Last Sitting”, the exhibition of photos of Marilyn by Bert Stern… McCurry provides that, and the public is there, people are coming back! », applauds Olivier Lorquin. The president of Maillol relishes with all the more pleasure that the success of the “World of Steve McCurry”, which signs a record attendance, makes us forget the darker years: the surprise closure of 2015 for a long renovation of more than 18 months, in the wake of the liquidation of the management company Tecniarte, then the transfer of management to Culturespaces, its withdrawal a few months ago, the health crisis… Now piloted in delegated management by the small Belgian SME on the rise , Tempora, designer of exhibitions, the Maillol museum sees the horizon clearing up.
Sold out on weekends
What better reopening indeed than with the American photographer whose sublime and sunny portraits, despite the chaos of countries at war which often serve as their backdrop, from India to the Middle East, from Afghanistan to Cuba, passing by the crash of the twin towers of New York, have toured the planet of photojournalism. Commander Massoud’s smile, the green and so intense, piercing look of this little Afghan woman whom the photographer would find 30 years later, and whose two portraits echo each other among the some 150 large-format shots in the exhibition. “Reopening with such success is very naturally promising,” smiles Matéo d’Yvoire, the operations manager of the Maillol museum. We feel that visitors wanted to come back and are overwhelmed by what we show them… We welcome on average between 800 and 1,000 people per day, whatever the day of the week, and weekends and late-night openings of Wednesday, when the museum closes at 10 p.m., are sold out on the Internet”. For these days, it is essential to book onlineon other days, around 200 people crowd the small entrance on rue de Grenelle every hour.
Maillol Museum, 59-61 Rue de Grenelle (VIIe), metro Rue du Bac (line 12). Open 7 days a week, from 10:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., late opening on Wednesdays until 10 p.m.