After Van Gogh and Niki de Saint Phalle, Toulouse wants to continue the major exhibition cycles
Two exhibitions have been a hit in recent months in Toulouse: the Niki de Saint-Phalle exhibition at the Musée des Abattoirs and the immersive Van Gogh exhibition at the EDF Bazacle space. The opportunity to question the place of culture in the Pink City. Pierre Esplugas, deputy mayor of Toulouse in charge of museums and president of the Abattoirs museum answered questions from France Bleu Occitanie.
The Van Gogh exhibition, offered by a private Belgian company, reached 150,000 people. It is already sold out for its last weekend. But regarding the Niki de Saint-Phalle exhibition, do you have any figures to give us?
Yesterday, we were at 90,000 visitors who have been able to visit this exhibition since October 6th. It lasts until March.
Are you going to extend it a bit?
No, because we have a loan contract until March 3. These are very complex exhibitions to mount and therefore one cannot decide to extend them with the stroke of a pen. It is necessary to convince the lenders, in particular the Niki de Saint-Phalle Foundation, the insurers, the carriers. These are exhibitions of complex engineering and financially complicated to mount.
The Musée des Abattoirs offered an exhibition on “Picasso and exile” in 2019, the tapestry of the Middle Ages “La Dame à Licorne” in 2021. Do you want to continue, each year, to organize major exhibitions?
Indeed, we decided to set up a cycle of major exhibitions which resumed with La Dame à la Licorne, which continues with Niki de Saint-Phalle today and which will continue from September 21 with an exhibition dedicated to Giacometti. Finally, in 2024-2025, we will change course with a major exhibition on the Cathars organized by both the Saint-Raymond museum and the Jacobins.
Do you think there are enough museums in Toulouse? Some are closed…
The Musée des Augustins is closed for work because we decided to revitalize it by planning a contemporary reception pavilion. It is a historic building, which is aging. We are going to restore the cloister, which will further lengthen the deadlines for the work. This explains a reopening in 2025. The Paul Dupuy museum has just reopened after renovation. There is another private museum which is closed: it is the Bemberg foundation which will reopen before the summer. It has Impressionist masterpieces and the fund of the collection has traveled around the world, from Shanghai to Houston to San Diego. In all, 600,000 visitors worldwide have seen the masterpieces of this Toulouse museum.
Do visitors to Toulouse come from all over the region to take advantage of the cultural offer?
For Niki de Saint Phalle, visitors are above all a regional public. It’s hard to bring Parisians in short, but for reasons that have nothing to do with culture. This is because of the absence of TGV: Parisians are used to taking the TGV and there is none in Toulouse.
Pierre Esplugas also returned to the registration of the city of Toulouse as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. His full video interview can be found above.