2023-05-27 14:40:50
In May 2019, employees of the Louvre Museum in Paris went on a day-long strike. A single day that aroused public anger and resulted in numerous media reports.
In Montreal, the Museum of Contemporary Art has been closed for almost two years. Everyone seems to care.
Yes, it takes a bit of bad faith to compare the MAC to the Louvre, which welcomes between 7 and 10 million visitors a year.
That said, we are still talking about two important museum institutions in their respective cities.
Throughout Montreal, the MAC has already been very popular. Remember: the monster queues to visit the exhibition dedicated to Leonard Cohen in 2017. Or the resounding success of David Altmejd’s exhibition in 2015. And that of Janet Werner in 2019.
In 2018, director and chief curator John Zeppetelli was delighted with his half-million visitors. The museum was relevant, it had carved out an enviable place for itself in the cultural landscape of Montreal.
Today its premises, which occupy the heart of the Quartier des Spectacles, are empty. Its doors are locked and its collections are stored. All this in the almost general indifference. During this time, it is at the PHI Foundation and at the Arsenal contemporary art that we have been able to see significant exhibitions such as Kusama, Yoko Ono or Pink Floyd.
Let’s remember some important dates. In 2014, the management of the museum presented its vision to double the surface area of the MAC. Project valuation: $44 million. Five years later, the project is stopped. The forecasts suggest too great a cost overrun. Then in 2022, a new call for tenders with a budget of 88 million dollars. The tender is canceled a few months later in hopes that the post-pandemic construction market will calm down a bit, with bids received over budget by 50%. Since then, it has been radio silence. But the longer we wait, the more the work will cost.
It should be noted that the Société québécoise des infrastructures (SQI) is the museum’s partner in this file and is managing the project. The same SQI which is not illustrated by its speed of execution at the Institut des Sourdes-Muettes, to cite just one example. But as in all these large-scale projects that involve several government partners, there is never a single person responsible for the deadlines, everyone passes the buck.
The file is said to be on Federal Minister Pablo Rodriguez’s desk and announcements will be made shortly. We’ll believe it when we see it. But it would be surprising if we could set foot on the new MAC before at least four years, if we are optimistic. It will then be almost six years since the institution closed its doors.
The MAC is still not the first museum institution to have to manage major works
The Pergamon Museum in Berlin will be closed until 2037! The Georges-Pompidou center, which will carry out work from 2025 to 2030, has partnered with the Louvre and the Grand Palais to present exhibitions during this parenthesis.
The MAC, on the other hand, presents fairly specialized exhibitions in a former Chinese restaurant in Place Ville Marie, in a district of office towers frequented by busy workers.
Only one Quebec artist has exhibited in this temporary downtown gallery in two years, while promoting contemporary Quebec art is part of the museum’s mission.
As for the MAC collections, they are in storage and therefore inaccessible to other museums wishing to borrow works.
And this situation would last another four or five years?
We understand that the expansion, which involves an architectural component from the firm Saucier+Perrotte, is not done by shouting scissors. No one wants this work to be botched. But while the MAC languishes, other Quebec institutions have begun and completed their renovations.
Could the management of the museum have been more dynamic, more visible in the public square, while putting more pressure on governments to make things move faster?
Director John Zeppetelli must convince skeptics that he’s still the man for the job to get the job done and lead the MAC into its next incarnation.
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