- Name of the organization: Musée National Picasso-Paris.
- Location: 5 Rue de Thorigny, 75003 Paris, France.
- Description of the incident: a petition denouncing management style of Anne Baldassari.
Mission
According to the official site of the Museum, its main mission is to preserve “collections that are part of the French national heritage” (“Musée Picasso Paris: Eduction” par. 1). Moreover, the Museum claims to have “a strong educational mission and aims to make the works of art available to the largest possible audience – particularly young people and school groups” (“Musée Picasso Paris: Eduction” par. 2).
Brief description and history
The museum exhibits more than 5000 works of art and stores thousands of archive items. The quality and the scope of the collection make it unique as it includes all the artistic domains Picasso worked in. The museum was founded in 1985 in the Hotel Salé (McNeese and Picasso 99). The collection was closed in 2009 for renovations.
Description of the incident
In 1992, Anne Baldassari, a 37-year old doctor of arts and social sciences, came to work to the museum as a curator and soon made several spectacular discoveries in the archives. Thus, her appointment as a director in 2005 came as no surprise: she had managed to raise the status of the museum greatly within a decade. Baldassari continued to organize successful exhibitions in many countries. However, her ambitions to go further already began to be criticized by other curators from Paris museums. Despite this warning tendency, in 2010, she was appointed the president of the museum – the position the power and influence of which in France are tremendous (the actions of the president are controlled only by the state) (Jones par. 29). Baldassari decided to enlarge the space of the museum. This required a lot of funds, which she got from the exhibitions in other countries. However, each time the museum announced the opening date, it had to be postponed because of the lack of money and inability to meet the deadline (Jones, par. 31). It was regarded as a great shame for the nation to keep the museum closed. Being the one to have almost unlimited power, Baldassari was blamed for the restoration failure. In 2013, the internal matter became public: the art critic of the French paper Libération published the secret report of the museum that contained sharp criticism of Baldassari and her policy. The French state that had remained indifferent to the incident before, took a great interest in the events. A special committee was appointed to investigate the case. The members found out that the problem was much larger in scale as Baldassari refused to change her policy despite the delays, cost overruns, and adverse relations with other Paris museums. After that, more than half of the museum’s staff members (approximately 20 people) signed a petition, which denounced Baldassari’s authoritarian management style that led the museum to stagnation. They demanded her immediate dismissal (Jones par. 33). The news spread quickly giving rise to discussion and criticism all over the world. The authorities decided that the reputation of the museum, which had already been considerably marred, could no longer suffer from a single person. However, it was not an easy task to ask Baldassari to resign: this step could provoke further disputes as she had a long record of being a good curator but failed to make a successful president. A compromise seemed to be found: Anne Baldassari was offered a lower position as a curator. If she had accepted it, she could have stayed in the museum to continue organizing the shows all over the world. Laurent Le Bon was selected to replace her in the position of the president. However, Baldassari declined the offer indignantly finding it humiliating. As a result, she was dismissed the same day (Jones par. 35).
The impact of the incident
The incident was finally resolved only in 2014 when the museum was reopened. Laurent Le Bon had to deal with €52 million five-year renovation costs that came as a result of constant delays. At the end of the reconstruction works, the space the museum occupied has tripled to more than 55, 000 square feet (Jones par. 48). The project, which was supposed to be completed two years after it had been launched, exceeded its initial budget and deadlines in two and a half times. The collection, no matter how large it was, did not require such an enormous space – the decision was irrational. However, the most deplorable consequences for the museum had nothing to deal with money. Baldassari’s policy to other museums made it isolated from the artistic world of Paris. Besides, the collection had been removed from the art scene for five years before the re-opening. As a result, most books and articles about Picasso written during this period belong to American and British authors (Jones par.51). Now it is high time French researchers reclaimed their leading positions in this field of studies.
Works Cited
Jones, Jonathan. Nightmare at the Picasso Museum. 2014. Web.
McNeese, Tim, and Pablo Picasso. Pablo Picasso. Infobase Publishing, 2006.
Musée Picasso Paris: Eduction. n.d. Web.