REINVENT OURSELVES TO STAY CONNECTED WITH OUR AUDIENCES
In the summer of 2020, the Grand Palais was transformed into a laboratory experimenting pro- jects set up in a very short time with the addition- al need to meet social distancing requirements: the artist Franck Scurti proposed a behind the scenes immersion into the creative process with his Au jour le jouroperation which revealed the intimacy of the artist s studio to the public. In December, the Colombian artist Diana Velásquez installed her work entitled L'attente (The Wait), composed of canvases hung across the front columns of the Grand Palais. The poign- ant manner in which she staged a queue of el- derly people waiting in line was a stark revelation of the powerless situation in which the pandemic plunged the most fragile among us. The Rmn - Grand Palais also associated itself with the Africa 2020 season by inviting Congolese artist Sammy Baloji to design two exception- al sculptures for the bare plinths of the Grand Palais façade. Huge brass works in the form of a sousaphone and a harmony horn, the work, entitled Johari - Brass Band, questions colonial history and its heritage, from Brass Bands to the current mining operations in the Katanga region of Congo. These events reflect our willingness to take part in contemporary debates and prefigure the artis- tic ambition of the new Grand Palais.
The exhibition programme, disrupted by the pandemic, offered a certain perspective on his- tory. Firstly the history of an ancient city with the digital and immersive Pompeii exhibition. This exhibition was a whole new experience, staging Pompeii spectacularly through a combination of cutting-edge technology, high-definition screen- ings and archaeological treasures. This was followed by the story of an artistic dis- cipline with Noir & Blanc (Black and White). A Photographic Aesthetic. Bringing together nearly 350 works from the collection of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, the exhibition explores the aesthetics of a photographic practice that spanned the 19th and 20th centuries. The Pompeii exhibition was initially planned for spring but was pushed back to the summer. To compensate for this delay, the Rmn Grand Palais devised Pompeii at home , a free online programme giving access to a large volume of content and resources concerning the theme of the exhibition. This initiative, launched at the be- ginning of the first lockdown, was very successful with the public and generated 1.3 million visits to the Grand Palais site. The Noir & Blanc exhibition was also pushed back to autumn Unfortunately the A Photographic Aesthetic exhibition could not go ahead. A part- nership with the RATP nevertheless offered Paris
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