Pompidou Goes International

Museums often pale into insignificance alongside the Gagosian Galleries in New York, Paris, London, Geneva, Athens, Rome and Hong Kong, and the American offshoots of fairs like Art Basel Miami and Frieze New York. One of the few institutions to venture into globalisation is the Centre Pompidou. Since an initial stunning coup in 2015, when Alain Seban, its then president, set up a temporary branch in Malaga, the movement has been gaining momentum over the past few weeks under his successor, Serge Lasvignes. In mid-December he signed a partnership with Brussels, and in early January France's President confirmed the museum's entry into Shanghai in 2019. Are we seeing a forced march under pressure from the internationalisation of contemporary art and its market? "It makes no sense to shut ourselves up in a bastion on our native soil, believing that the power of our works alone can make our future secure," thunders the museum's director, who is now promoting "dissemination beyond our borders, where we have the advantage of considerable…