Day 195
The line stretched across the courtyard, but moved at a decent pace.
I’d been waiting to do the art museums until K was here. One that we’d never been to is the Pompidou Centre which houses a huge library and the Musée National d’Art Moderne. The museum has both modern and contemporary art, pieces by the artists Picasso, Matisse, Bonnard, Belaunay, Braque. Although it’s usually Kier’s or my initiative that gets us through the door of art museums, it’s Paul who lingers the longest in front of each work of art. He takes his time, and eventually catches up and enthusiastically tells us a nugget of interest.
The Pompidou also housed an exhibit of the thirty years of work by the German artist Anslem Kiefer, one of the first artists to deal with post WWII content and all of its dark subject matter. I was more interested in this exhibit since my mom still struggles with her memories of the war, and often talks of it. I was fascinated to see how an artist depicted his feelings of a war so vividly, even though it had ended the year he was born. The canvases were gigantic, covering huge walls. The scene wrapped around you in a way I hadn’t experienced before. The painting are less of a viewing and more of an experience. Sounds a little overly dramatic, but it was true.
More than any of the impressive, famous works themselves, I find these settings a different way to enjoy the company of the people with whom I went to see them. Today, that’s K and Paul, since the younger two are more interested in almost anything else. After completing a chunk of the museum, the three of us sat in the cafe, had coffee and sweet and savory treats. From the moment the girls could talk, there’s never been a shortage of conversation in our little family. But as the girls get older and start collecting their own experiences separate from our family, they’ve become even more interesting. The conversation moves at a good clip, has become more complex, everyone has something to add, and it’s often irreverently hilarious. You can’t take any of the masterpieces with you, but you do take your relationships which have one more shared experience and conversation. That remains my favorite part of most outings, how connections between us evolve.