Tired of the Duty-Free Shop? Go Check Out Those Rodins
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Version 0 of 1. ROISSY, France — When Steve and Kimberly Kulpanowski arrived at the Roissy-Charles de Gaulle Airport to fly home to Detroit, they could not believe their luck. They had tried to take in as much of Paris as they could, including a Christmas dinner at the Eiffel Tower, but they had missed the sculptures of Auguste Rodin. After checking in and going through security, though, they found Rodin’s work in a most unexpected spot: in a small gallery tucked away between a Bulgari store and a cafe, on the way to their gate. “We had missed it, that’s why we were so excited to find it here,” said Mr. Kulpanowski, 51. “I couldn’t even believe it.” Officials at the airport inaugurated the museum space last December, hoping to improve the airport’s image and gain a competitive edge over other European hubs. And financially struggling artistic institutions are eager to promote their collections to the millions of passengers that come through annually. As for travelers, they finally have more than duty-free cigarettes and 15 minutes of free Wi-Fi to look forward to. The 2,600-square-foot, T-shaped gallery opened in Satellite 4, a new international departures hall at the airport, which is 16 miles north of Paris. The new terminal is slick and gleaming white, identical to many airport terminals, except perhaps for the smell of cheese wafting from a remarkably well-laden dairy section in the Buy Paris duty-free store. The museum space, however, has the sober oak floors and polished black walls of a regular museum. Glass panes protect the sculptures, bronze and plaster torsos, expressive faces, winged figures. Only the luggage carts, shopping bags and passports hint at the gallery’s location. “It’s a bit of a hidden treasure,” said Stephanie Giddings, a 33-year-old Australian flying back from Berlin, as two Japanese women took pictures of each other with their phones in front of a plaster cast of “The Thinker.” The cone-shaped entrance of wood and glass panels that ushers visitors inside is easy to miss. Many travelers go by without a glance, and those who stop are surprised. There is no entrance fee. “They should advertise it more,” Mr. Kulpanowski said. Aéroports de Paris, the public company that runs the airport, and Artcurial, an auction house, created an endowment fund to manage the space and negotiate the loan of works of art from institutions. Artcurial belongs to the Dassault Group, a major French civil and military aviation manufacturer. Art has also arrived on the doorstep of Le Bourget, a smaller airport south of Roissy that is used for private jets. There, the art dealer Larry Gagosian recently opened a 17,760-square-foot private gallery designed by the French architect Jean Nouvel. It is currently featuring works by the German artist Anselm Kiefer. The gallery is in a former hangar, not in the airport itself. Several airports in the United States regularly collaborate with artistic institutions, and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has a permanent annex at Schiphol Airport. In France, airports in Nice and Toulouse have also displayed art, and a terminal at Orly Airport, south of Paris, features weekly jazz concerts. But Roissy-Charles de Gaulle is the first to organize an exhibit of this caliber in the heart of a terminal, a six-month show called “The Wings of Glory” set up in collaboration with the Musée Rodin, which opened in 1919 after the sculptor’s death. Rotating shows displaying pieces from other French artistic institutions will follow. For museums, the partnership with Europe’s second-busiest passenger airport offers maximal exposure at minimal costs, especially at a time when financing is hard to come by. “It’s six months of free advertising for us, and for an audience that is leaving but that often comes back,” said Catherine Chevillot, the director of the Musée Rodin. Mrs. Chevillot estimated that while 730,000 people visit the museum every year, approximately 750,000 to 800,000 people would come through the airport gallery in the next six months. On a recent Friday morning, travelers strolled around the museum space, luggage in tow, thrilled by the ability to enjoy famous sculptures like “The Age of Bronze” or “The Kiss,” a few steps away from the planes that would take them to Atlanta, Cancún or Ho Chi Minh City. “I think it is very nice,” said Nathalie Santander, 42, a teacher at the Lycée Français in New York, as she waited for her flight. “It’s relaxing, like a mini-museum.” Prasad Rao, 47, works in advertising and often travels between Bangalore and Toronto. He said he admired the “strength and power of Rodin” and welcomed the gallery as a respite from the usual shopping-centric airport experience. “In any city in the world you can get the same brands,” he said. Augustin de Romanet, president and chief executive of Aéroports de Paris, said the new terminal was aimed at promoting French products and culture. “The fact that there is a museum contributes to improving the experience,” he said. Mr. Rao, for instance, was back visiting the gallery after missing it on a previous trip. “When it came time for my departure I came by and I thought, ‘Wow, I wish I had known!’ ” he said of his last time at Roissy. Mr. de Romanet likened the museum space to the first regional branch of the Louvre, in postindustrial northern France. “We are bringing something to passengers who a priori aren’t interested in art, who aren’t here for that,” he said. Not everybody is so enthusiastic about bringing art to the traveling masses. “When you go to Roissy, you go to take a flight, not to see a museum,” said Didier Rykner, director of the art news Web site La Tribune de l’Art, who said that he could not judge the exhibit itself because he had not seen it, but that he found the idea bizarre. Mr. Rykner expressed particular outrage at having the gallery in a departure terminal accessible only to those who have checked in and been through security lines. “This is being done for people who didn’t ask for it,” he said. “The people who would like to see the exhibit can’t, whereas those who didn’t necessarily ask for it can. It’s absurd.” But travelers welcomed the arrival of art in the airport. “Usually there is only commerce: buying, buying, buying!” said Carmen Vásquez, 58, a Mexican citizen in transit back from Rome, as she contemplated a portrait of Rodin by the French painter René Avigdor. Her flight for Mexico City was leaving in 25 minutes. |