Paris Museums Close Ahead of Protests; Brognon Rollin Wins Duchamp Prize

By Grace Kim

The Louvre, Musée d'Orsay, the Picasso Museum and the Grand Palais' exhibition spaces will all close on Saturday, October 24, ahead of planned protests in the French capital, Le Figaro reports. It's the biggest precautionary shutdown of Paris's major museums in recent memory, and it comes one week after civil unrest followed mostly peaceful demonstrations across France.

Why are the museums closing?

The French Ministry of Culture urged all national and public museums to do everything necessary to ensure the safety of visitors, workers, and artworks. Many shops have already boarded up their windows in case of a second round of looting.

The trigger is a wave of protests about social and economic inequality amid a rising cost of living. President Emmanuel Macron announced that only protests organized by unions are authorized on Saturday, and partial curfews will take effect in several cities. He blamed last weekend's violence on "political and seditious acts by the ultra-far-left groups who aimed to bring down the republic."

What does this change for visitors? Anyone holding Saturday tickets to the four affected venues should expect closures and check directly with each museum, since further shutdowns at other institutions are possible under the ministry's guidance.

Who won the Marcel Duchamp Prize?

The artist duo Brognon Rollin — David Brognon and Stéphanie Rollin, who live and work between Paris and Luxembourg — won the Marcel Duchamp Prize in Paris, the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris (MAM) announced.

Their winning project, "5,376 years, 1892 months, 1110 days, 1201 hours," is built on a deceptively simple gesture. The duo collected sobriety tokens from members of abstinence groups — small chips that mark how long a person has stayed sober. They then added up the time the tokens collectively represent and displayed them in an installation evocative of arcade or fairground games.

"With Brognon Rollin, the Marcel Duchamp Prize recognizes a demanding body of work that is committed to materializing what usually escapes the eye: the time of waiting, of addiction, and of intimate resistance," said Fabrice Hergott, director of MAM.

The Digest

• Nearly 1,000 objects from the family of former Spanish dictator Francisco Franco have seen their value explode ahead of a sale at Magna Art Auctions later this month. Historic preservationist groups claim many of the lots include items of national heritage and want the sale suspended. [El País]
• A man was arrested for using a sledgehammer to behead the figure of a Marine depicted in the Iwo Jima statue in Quantico, Virginia, causing hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage. [NBC Washington]
• A legislative bill introduced in March could significantly expand the French government's definition of art considered a "national treasure," a category that requires export certificates the state may refuse. [The Art Newspaper]
• Los Angeles architects Johnston Marklee have released design plans for the expansion of the Bass Museum of Art in Miami Beach. [Artforum]
• The forthcoming Róng Museum of Art (RMoA) in Shenzhen has appointed three curators ahead of its 2027 opening: Freya Chou, Li Jia, and Susanna Zhu. [ArtAsiaPacific]

The Kicker: Van Gogh's sky, dated

Researchers believe they have cracked the science behind Vincent van Gogh's The Starry Night (1889), the Times of London reports. They argue the famous swirls show the Taurus constellation, marked by a waning crescent moon, the planet Venus, and the Hyades star cluster.

Using a technique that superimposes images of the stars onto the painting, and knowing Van Gogh looked out the east window of his room in the asylum at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, the scientists pinpointed July 22, 1889. That's a month later than previously estimated — and evidence that Van Gogh painted from observation rather than invention.

"It has been debated whether the night sky in question was the painter's fantasy, a symbolic representation, or a realistic astronomical observation," the Springer Nature group, which publishes the Scientific Reports journal, said. The new dating tips that debate toward the sky he actually saw.