Paris Picasso Museum reopening put off until September
The long-awaited reopening of Paris’s Picasso museum has been postponed to September, France’s culture ministry said on Sunday. The announcement comes amid a row over a revamp that has seen the museum closed for five years.
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Culture Minister Aurélie Filipetti has decided that the Musée Picasso’s reopening, previously fixed for June, will take place mid-September, a ministry statement said on Sunday.
On Friday Picasso’s son, Claude, lashed out at Filipetti and demanded that she do “everything she could” to see that the June deadline was met.
He expressed confidence in the museum’s president, Anne Baldassari, whose management style has come under fire.
Baldassari had proposed reopening in mid-July but on Saturday architect Jean-François Bodin insisted that the end of June was still viable and denied claims that the building work had not been finished a month late.
“Contrary to certain public claims, the work in the main body of the museum, the Hôtel Salé, as not finished until 30 April,” the ministry statement says. “What is more construction of the technical wing [a new addition largely aimed at young people], an essential part of the museum, will not be finished until the end of May.”
Work inside the wing could not be completed before June, the ministry argued.
The statement called on all involved to “go beyond personal interests and share the enthusiasm and calm that will ensure the completion of the project”.
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