Laurent Le Bon, the president of Musée Picasso in Paris, will in July become the president of the Pompidou Center — the modern art institution, known for its inside-out architecture, that is one of France’s most popular tourist attractions.
France’s Culture Ministry confirmed Le Bon’s appointment in a news release on Friday. He will replace Serge Lasvignes, its president since 2015.
Le Bon, 52, faces a challenging term. The Paris museum is scheduled to close from 2023 to 2027 for renovations to deal with its antiquated heating and cooling system, escalators that frequently break down and asbestos in the structure that needs to be removed. The museum will send works from its 120,000-strong collection to museums around France while it is closed.
This month, the Pompidou Center also announced plans to open an outpost in Jersey City, N.J., in 2024, adding to its satellite museums in Metz, France; Málaga, Spain; Brussels; and Shanghai.
Le Bon is a well-known figure in France’s art world. A graduate of the Louvre’s school, he gained a reputation as a provocative curator from the start of his career, according to the French daily Le Monde.
His exhibitions sometimes showed a mischievous sense of humor. In 2000, Le Bon curated a major Paris exhibition of garden gnomes, featuring 2,000 of the creatures, from ancient Egyptian forerunners to works by Jeff Koons. “They are benevolent spirits who bring sunshine,” he told The International Herald Tribune in an interview about the show.
That same year, he joined the Pompidou Center as a curator, and in 2005 staged “Dada,” a landmark show that traced the art movement’s ongoing influence. It included iconic artworks like Marcel Duchamp’s famous urinal, “Fountain.”
Le Bon oversaw the 2010 opening of the Pompidou’s outpost in Metz, its first, then left to take took over at the Musée Picasso, in 2014, at a time when that institution was struggling with an overrun renovation and squabbling with its neighbors over noise.
Le Bon did not respond to a request for comment on his appointment, but Lasvignes, the Pompidou’s current president, welcomed the decision in a news release. “His attachment to the originality of this institution bodes very well,” Lasvignes said.
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