Some 120 works on the over 5,000 pieces ranging from antiquity to our days collected by the Sheikh Qatari are presented in four rooms.
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83 333 euros per month, or 208 euros per square meter, the rent may seem high, even for Paris. It is the amount that will receive for twenty years the National Monuments Center (CMN) for the rental in Sheikh al-Thani of a four rooms of 400 square meters located on the first floor of the Hotel de la Marine, Place de la Marine. The Concorde (one accesses by the Royal Street).
intended to show a selection of 120 works of his prodigious art collection, which has more than 5,000 pieces, from antiquity to the present day, this precise place of the palace was originally used to store tapestries Royal collections. He was not decorated. This is done: the Sheikh Qatari appealed to the Japanese architect Tsuyoshi Tane, who animates the Cabinet Atta, to create a surprising scenography.
It refused to paste the style of the XVII e which reigns everywhere else in the building, but still addressed a wink: a rain of gold streams in the first room of the exhibition. A little fabricate, but spectacular. These are acanthus leaves – a reason for rigor in the ornaments of the Grand Century – Golden and suspended on sons. We forget them quickly enough to focus on the seven objects exposed there, in windows that allow the eye to approach it closely.
Prodigies of technology
This is to better focus on works. And they deserve it: “The first gallery is a window on the civilizations of the world,” says Amin Jaffer, the curator of the collection. The tone is given: we are there closer to the “imaginary museum” expensive in Malraux where the cultures that have a classic museum where the works are wisely classified by genre and by country. The second gallery, with a much more sober decor, contains eleven windows, technology wonders that save objects with the slightest vibration. Each houses a face, all have eyes at the same height: “Here too, comments Amin Jaffer, an idea of meeting, but with the humans of the past.”
The third gallery is thought for temporary exhibitions. The first is devoted to the arts of Islam. Finally, the last gallery, closer, with winding vitrines over 18 meters, wants to evoke an ancient treasure.