PARIS — This Saturday is the eighth annual European Night of Museums, and as night falls 3,000 European museums will be outdoing themselves to show off their collections in the most inventive ways possible. With the support of UNESCO, the Council of Europe, the French Ministry of Culture and Communication, and the International Council of Museums, the event turns European cultural institutions into vast experimental terrains by bringing cinema, video, music, performance, and contemporary art out to play. Best of all, the evening's events are entirely free. ARTINFO France selected some of the most unusual and inspiring Night of Museums happenings in the Paris area.
See Rodin by Torchlight and Flashlight
For the first time, the Rodin Museum in Meudon in the southwestern suburbs of Paris — which is a bit more under-the-radar than Paris's Rodin Museum — will open its doors for European Museum Night. The Villa des Brillants, where the sculptor resided until his death, has been preserved as a studio and museum, and both it and the surrounding garden will be lit by torches so that his work can be discovered in a more intimate and eerie setting. You can pay respects at Rodin's tomb, which is in the garden, next to that of his wife, Rose Beuret, and in the shadow of "The Thinker." Shuttle service will be provided between Paris and Meudon.
In Paris, the famous Rodin Museum in the Hôtel Biron is closed for renovations, but visitors can take guided tours of the garden by flashlight. Rodin's contemporary Etienne Dujardin-Beaumetz already came up with the idea in his "Conversations with Rodin": "You will do well to examine [the sculptures] at night by the light of a lamp or a candle slowly projected on all the surfaces; you will see muscles spring forth that you didn't see before, shapes that you didn't suspect... Sculpture is in movement, it changes with lighting." At the same time, Polish artist Katarzyna Kozyra will project her version of "The Rite of Spring" on seven screens under a tent — pagan, hysterical, and filled with unexpected muscles of its own.
Shop at Rob Pruitt's Flea Market
The Musée de la Monnaie is also undergoing renovations, but will open up its courtyard for Rob Pruitt's flea market from 6pm to midnight. In the midst of tools used for minting coins and medals (the museum is located in an active mint), Pruitt will evoke the relationship between art and money, in the tradition of Marcel Duchamp, who once said that "art is a product, just like green beans." Pruitt has invited 80 contemporary artists — close friends and celebrities, emerging talents and confirmed ones — to take part in a giant flea market, selling objects that are dear to them, whether created or purchased, or things that they simply want to get rid of. At Gavin Brown's New York gallery in 2000, Pruitt inaugurated this new type of artwork, an interactive fair that thumbs its nose at the art industry. He has since done other editions at Frieze and Tate Modern. On Saturday night, he'll welcome Pierre Ardouvin, Camille Henrot, Mohammed Bourouissa, and M/M, among others, for an earthy fair full of good deals that's also a who's-who of the French art scene.
Sweet Sounds at the Grand Palais or the Musée d'Orsay
Take your pick: electronic music among the animals, or orchestral sounds with an Impressionist backdrop. Notable Paris DJ Joakim, founder of the Tigersushi label and the creator of musical gems mixing acid house, metal, and late disco, will be at the "Animal Beauty" exhibition at the Grand Palais. Starting at 8pm, visitors can stroll through the artistic fauna to the tune of Joakim's specially concocted mix, and he'll perform live at 11pm. The atmosphere at the Musée d'Orsay will be quite different, as the museum celebrates its new décor and its expanded Impressionist collection with music in the galleries. The group La Lyre d'Orsay will perform works by composers including Charles Gounod, Amilcare Ponchielli, and Francis Popy.
Explore Outer Space at Versailles
For Parisians who aren't afraid to venture a bit beyond the capital, the Château of Versailles promises a luminous evening. "Passion for the Stars" will offer erudite pleasure-seekers a leap into the past, to the time when the grandiose and festive palace was in thrall to astronomical discoveries. In 1609, Galileo threw the doors to the universe wide open, making astronomy the reigning science of the time. Louis XIV — who was, after all, the Sun King — dedicated each of his palace apartments to the seven planets that were known at the time, and science infiltrated architecture, interior design, and all the arts. Saturday night, Versailles presents an ephemeral display of illuminations, installations, and video projections that mingle astrological and astronomical representations of the past with ultra-precise images from the latest astrophysics labs. This brilliant telescoping of the eras will fill the grands appartements and the famous mirrored hall, the Galerie des Glaces.
A version of this article appears on ARTINFO France.