Two accessories seem to be essential for visiting the Musée de la Marine in Paris, as the new scenography aims to "encourage total immersion in the sea": flippers and snorkels. But that’s not all. On the leaflet handed out at the entrance, we discover that "comfort items" are available for "sensitive" people who want to "visit the museum in peace". The list makes you wonder if it’s better to change tack and run away as quickly as possible. Why are noise-cancelling headphones, sunglasses, a magnifying glass, a weighted blanket and even a anti-stress ball on offer? Why are there visitor slots during which the scenography is "softened", with reduced variations in sound and light? Too bad for the average visitor, who has to jump into the water without a diving suit or life jacket.
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- 1. The vestibule of the Musée national de la Marine
"with its mysterious and unusual atmosphere".
Paris, Musée national de la Marine
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Closed since 2017, the museum housed in the Palais de Chaillot reopened its doors on 27 November. Thierry Gausseron will succeed Vincent Campredon, who has been running the museum since 2015, in 2024. The building has been renovated - we’ll come back to this later - the collections restored (see article) and the exhibition route completely redesigned. The winning architects in the competition were H2O and Snøhetta, while the scenography was designed by Casson Mann. The permanent collections occupy the ground floor and garden level of the Davioud wing. The Carlu wing, which runs parallel to the Davioud wing, houses the temporary exhibitions, the bookshop and the auditorium. The number of objects on display is the same as before: around a thousand. That’s not a huge number, given that there are over 35,000 in the reserves. And yet it’s a minor miracle to see so many, firstly because it was planned to display half as many works, and secondly because the space lost by the new layout is staggering.
After wandering through a vestibule "with a mysterious and unusual atmosphere " featuring the Carmagnolle brothers’ prototypical diving suit (ill. 1), visitors arrive in an immense reception area that perfectly illustrates the maritime notion of the abyssal void (ill. 2). At the very least, a monumental work could have been placed here. Vincent Bouat-Ferlier, who was head of the museum programme and then scientific director before taking up a new post in December 2022, had insisted on the need to exhibit as many works as before, if not more, and suggested presenting Carlo Sarrabezolles’ The Genius of the Sea in the entrance area. This sculpture, created by an artist who had worked at the Palais de Chaillot, was intended to serve as the stern figure of the Normandie liner.. It would thus have echoed the famous Réale, Louis XIV’s royal galley, on display at the other end of the gallery.
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- 2. The reception area.
In the background, the mezzanine
to welcome members.
Paris, Musée national de la Marine
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- 3. "Landmark area"
located under the mezzanine
Paris, Musée national de la Marine - See the image in its page
The museum has chosen an "olfactory signature", a fragrance entitled "Sillage de mer ("Sea Scent", which fortunately is not inspired by the smell of low tide. The aim is "to make the visit a truly sensitive experience inspired by the ocean [1]". It takes a lot of air to fill the sails of a vessel as big as the Musée de la Marine.
Before entering the collections, visitors have to pass in front of a "landmark area", an enormous pedestal from which emerge the arms of an octopus, a telescope or a map, accompanied by inspiring words (which are hardly recommended under the sea): "mystery", "dream", "diving" (ill. 3). Perhaps it would have been better to point out, by way of landmarks, a few major dates or events, and even - dare we say the dirty word - a timeline.
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- 4. Section on port activities.
On the left is a container, in the background the hull.
The works are in corridors.
Paris, Musée national de la Marine
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- 5. Section on the arts of navigation
Paris, Musée national de la Marine
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Once through the portico, visitors enter a veritable shambles (ill. 4 and 5). Works of art are piled up, crammed as best they can into nooks and crannies, forced to make way for "strong scenographic gestures". Three monumental installations, once again presented as "landmarks", are designed to create "moments of spectacular intensity and immersive experiences". Splash. Thus, at the start of the tour, an immense ocean liner hull rises up, which you have to enter to watch a film (ill. 6). Then life-size containers are arranged at different heights on gantries to showcase port activities (ill. 7). Finally, a dizzying wave of light introduces the "storms and shipwrecks" section (ill. 8)... All that’s missing now is the Titanic iceberg to completely block out the horizon and sink to the bottom.
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- 6. The ship’s hull
Paris, Musée national de la Marine
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- 7. Containers
Paris, Musée national de la Marine
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Among the containers, one is completely empty and seems to have only a decorative function, which is saying a lot; another is used as a showcase for Lego figures illustrating the energies of the sea and more particularly wind turbines (ill. 9). Where does it say that wind turbines have a disastrous or at least questionable impact on the landscape and the seabed? Nowhere. No doubt because one of the sponsors is Skyborn Renewables, a major player in offshore wind energy. This is all the more disturbing given that the museum has drawn up an international manifesto for maritime heritage in 2022, to raise awareness of the challenges facing the sea. Similarly, the navy, and more particularly the contemporary navy, occupies a little too much space in the exhibition, to the detriment of other sections such as exploration. It’s hardly surprising that Naval Group, Dassault Aviation and MBDA are among the patrons, having donated a whole range of models of boats and even missiles.
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- 8. The wave
Section on storms and shipwrecks
Paris, Musée national de la Marine
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- 9. Energy from the sea: wind turbines
Paris, Musée national de la Marine
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As for the giant wave - twenty metres long, eight metres high - it engulfs the objects rather than highlighting them. The desire to offer visitors "a physically and dynamically immersive experience" is a success: here they are, packed like sardines into small spaces to observe the works on display (ill. 10). The architects responsible for renovating the building had wanted to "preserve the emptiness of the galleries". But that was without counting on the scenography.
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- 10. Visitors between the waves
Paris, Musée national de la Marine
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- The first mezzanine.
The "members’ corner".
Paris, Musée national de la Marine
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The use of space is also unexpected. What is the purpose of the new mezzanines? While one of them is devoted to the theme of ocean liners, the other is reserved for the brand-new members’ coffee club (ill. 11). Here, then, is a museum that prefers its members to its collections. And yet the members go first to the Palais de Chaillot to see the works, or so we hope. The famous harbour views painted by Joseph Vernet could have been displayed on this 300 square metre mezzanine. Instead, they are stuck together in a cramped room at the end of the gallery (ill. 12). Of the fifteen ports of France commissioned by Louis XV, thirteen are in the Musée de la Marine, the Louvre having refused to lend the two remaining ones. Admittedly, their display in this small room allows us to take a close look at their details, revealed by a recent restoration (see article), but we also need to stand back to admire these monumental canvases, which were painted to form a whole rather than to be displayed two by two.
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- 12. Joseph Vernet (1714-1789)
The Ports of France
Paris, Musée national de la marine
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- 13. Joseph Vernet (1714-1789)
The Ports of France
Paris, Musée national de la Marine
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There is another surprising choice: the Carlu wing, now devoted to temporary exhibitions, is larger than the garden level of the Davioud wing, where the permanent exhibition continues. Why not spread the collections over the entire ground floor, as before, using both wings, while the garden level could be used for temporary exhibitions?
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- 13. Sculpture workshop at the Marseilles arsenal, 1688 and 1694
Ornaments on the stern of the galley Réale
Paris, Musée national de la Marine
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The tour itself is interesting, punctuated by relatively well-developed labels. Initially thematic on the ground floor - among the subjects covered are how to find one’s way around the sea and the arts of navigation, port activities, shipwrecks and the representation of power - it becomes chronological on the garden level to tell the story of France as a naval power, from Louis XIII to the present day.
The idea was to break with the typological layout of the old museum, in which the fine arts, for example, were housed in a separate section. Today, different maritime issues are evoked through a diversity of works and objects. The first room is an understandable exception, since it exhibits only one type of object, which forms the core of the collection: model ships, which vary greatly in size and function. Some of the sections are disappointing, particularly the one devoted to Le Havre, which seems to be a bit of a catch-all, covering all port activities from fishing and yachting to sporting competition and trade. In the "Representing power" section, the Réale is unfortunately less well displayed than before (ill. 13): its magnificent sculpted decorations to the glory of Louis XIV, illustrating the course of the sun personified by Apollo, were fixed to a structure that evoked the monumental silhouette of the ship; now they float in the air, a little too low. The old installation, it seems, took up far too much space, and other works would have had to be sacrificed in order to keep it. No one minded, however, when it came to installing the ’wave’ or the huge, hopelessly empty reception area.
A very successful room focuses on the process of creating the sculpted ornaments for the ships (ill. 14): the preparatory drawings, the wax and clay projects, and finally the wooden sculptures, are all stages in the process of setting up the iconography and adapting to the client’s requirements.
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- 14. The Wax Cabinet
Paris, Musée national de la Marine
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It is distressing that this institution does not acknowledge the richness of its collections, or their historical, scientific, technical and artistic value. "The Musée de la Marine is reinventing itself as a museum of society, open to the times, a place for exchanges and encounters, a forum for the major issues facing the world". Many museum institutions thus no longer trust the works they conserve, and no longer believe in their intrinsic interest, preferring to transform themselves into leisure centres and "contemporary places" to attract visitors (see article). To avoid the pitfall of boredom, the Musée de la Marine has chosen to drown its collections, to crowd them out by modern installations that are deliberately "spectacular" and therefore entertaining, and by an overall discourse that seeks to erase the dusty label of history museum.
But who’s at the helm? Communication and marketing, or the scientific team? As at the Musée de l’Armée, the curators are no longer part of the management team. What’s more, the organisational chart shows that they are responsible for the collections, but not for outreach or cultural programming, which are the responsibility of the museum’s deputy director.
The Musée de la Marine seems above all to be a brand, with a carefully thought-out logo used on clothing and bags that can be purchased in the shop, and an "olfactory signature" diffused in the reception areas. It is certainly essential to find sources of income, but its mission, whatever people say, is first and foremost to showcase its collections.
Many people jumped ship during the renovation work. In a video, the museum’s general secretary says without batting an eyelid that "In 2020, there were more than 100 HR movements during the year between departures and arrivals". No doubt the definitive move of the collections department - comprising curators, restorers and the research centre - to the reserves at Dugny must have discouraged many. These brand new reserves are located on a site that is difficult to reach by public transport, twenty-five kilometres from the museum...
The departure in 2021 of Julien Cordier, head of the building renovation project, followed by that of Vincent Bouat-Ferlier in 2022, head of the museographic project and scientific director, are also indicative of a certain malaise. Not only did the Scientific Director not wait until the museum’s inauguration to leave, but his post remained vacant for almost a year, right in the middle of the museum’s renovation.
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- 15. View of the "Objectif mer" exhibition
Paris, Musée national de la Marine
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Let’s end on a much more optimistic note: the temporary exhibition that has just opened, devoted to the sea and cinema, is a real success (ill. 15). Organised around two major themes, "Filmer le réel" and "Films de fiction", it mixes videos, costumes, posters, works and various objects to dissect all these attempts to frame the infinite.
Practical information: Musée national de la Marine de Paris, Palais de Chaillot, 17 place du Trocadéro, 75016 Paris. Tel: +33 (0)1 53 65 69 48. Open daily except Tuesday, from 11 am to 7 pm, until 10 pm on Thursday. Price: between €12 and €15.
"Objectif mer : l’océan filmé", from 13 December 2023 to 05 May 2024.