Mr. Kundera told The Paris Review in 1983: “My lifetime ambition has been to unite the utmost seriousness of question with utmost lightness of form. The combination of a frivolous form and a serious subject immediately unmasks the truth about our dramas (those that occur in our beds as well as those that we play out on the great stage of History) and their awful insignificance. We experience the unbearable lightness of being. “ - Daniel Lewis, The New York Times, Thursday, July 2023 on MILAN KUNDERA, 1929 - 2023
Giacometti
Centre Pompidou
This is the starting point.
Paris, France. Modern and contemporary art museum.
Architect(s) Renzo Piano, Richard Rogers and Gianfranco Franchini, opened 1977.
Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou - proper, Pompidou Center, in English
Houses the largest modern art museum in Europe, as well as IRCAM (French: Ircam, Institut de recherche et coordination acoustique/musique, English: Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music), an institute dedicated to the research of music and sound, especially avant garde and electro-acoustical art music.
The name sake, Georges Jean Raymond Pompidou (5 July 1911 – 2 April 1974), was the president of France. He came from a modest family, parents were teachers, studied literature, and was a teacher a public secondary school in Paris. In 1953, Rothschild, a bank, hired him, and eventually appointed him general manager. President Charles de Gaulle hires him to manage a Down Syndrome foundation, and becomes Prime Minister under President Charles de Gaulle from 1962 - 1968. President of France from 1969 - 74. He continued the de Gaulle policy of modernizing France. 1977 Centre Pompidou inaugurates.
His ascent from teacher to banker to politician is impressive, especially with that fact that he was a novice in banking and politics.
Based on the documentary, Pompidou was an avid art collector, and had a keen eye on modern and contemporary art. The story of having a contemporary art hung in his presidential office was quite telling.
