PARIS.- The Centre Pompidou is exhibiting a new presentation of its modern collection from 1905 to 1965, with a circuit featuring major milestones in the collection together with exhibition-dossiers (renewed every six months). The first stage in a major refurbishment project, this presentation now invites visitors to enter the museum via level 5 of the building, and explore the history of art from the modern to the contemporary periodes.

« A new presentation of the museum’s modern collection is always an event, which highlights the importance and incomparable diversity of the Centre Pompidou’s well-stocked collection,» says the institution’s chairman, Serge Lasvignes. We have decided to focus on the major landmarks in the history of modern art from 1905 to the 1960s, and its significant turning points. Visitors will thus have all the keys to understanding how the spark of modernity appeared and set alight the entire world of art in the first half of the 20th century.»

A presentation highlighting great milestones in the collection
The result of a joint endeavour between all the museum’s teams coordinated by Bernard Blistène, director of the Musée National d’Art Moderne, this circuit reveals the succession of figures, works and movements that structured modern art. «We wanted this presentation to be clear and easy to grasp, with a touch of the educational. This new hang takes visitors on a journey through modern art in terms of the mainstream visual and multidisciplinary aspects, while also doing justice to areas of creativity that are too often ignored,» says Bernard Blistène.

There are several ways for the public to learn about the great moments in modern art, in all their complexity and variety, from Fauvism, Cubism and Surrealism to lyric and geometric abstraction. Large monographic sections are dedicated to the collection’s iconic artists: Henri Matisse, Georges Rouault, Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso, Sonia and Robert Delaunay, Fernand Léger, Vassily Kandinsky, František Kupka, André Breton, Alberto Giacometti, Jean Dubuffet and many others.

Exhibition-dossiers at the heart of the circuit
But the circuit also makes room for a series of exhibition-dossiers in different formats, renewed every six months, drawing on the remarkable documentary collections of the Bibliothèque Kandinsky. The first will be devoted to the great «go-betweens» who helped to write the history of modernity – theorists, historians, critics, enlightened art lovers and thinkers of the time. «The circuit puts the spotlight on what we call the «go-betweens», who did so much in terms of highlighting and interpreting modern works,» says Bernard Blistène. «We are setting the ball rolling with Georges Duthuit, Guillaume Apollinaire, Georges Bataille, André Breton, Michel Ragon and Pierre Restany. These exhibition-dossiers will give viewers a clearer picture of the decisive role played by various major intellectual figures, and shed light on the history of art and the people who contributed to it.»

A new area for tributes and the current scene
The circuit ends with a room marking a transition to the «Contemporary» floor, where there will be regular spotlights on works in the collection, some of which have been recently acquired. The idea is to take stock of works by major artistic figures within a decidedly multidisciplinary collection, including Barnett Newman, Gil J. Wolman and Vittorio Gregotti...