What follows here is a copy of the email I sent to the organizers of the DAU exhibit, which, as both readers know, was a complete and utter disappointment to me.
Greetings,
My apologies for writing in English--I confess that while I can understand and speak French to a limited degree, I am unable to write with any certainty. I hope you will understand.
I also hope you will understand why I am writing to request a refund. I signed up and paid for an unlimited visa to the DAU.
My first inkling that this might have been a mistake came when I went by the visitor center at Chatelet on 24 January, when the show was scheduled to open, only to find that it had been postponed. In fact, as I looked at the two venues, I could see that they were still struggling to get them open--workers furiously working on the doors and scaffolding still up at the Theatre du Chatelet. No worries, I thought, as I was not scheduled to receive my 'visa' until the 28th. I had hopes that the technical difficulties would be worked out by then.
I came back to the visa center at the appointed time--thirty minutes early, as advised--and received my visa without delay. A good sign, I thought. I asked if both venues at Chatelet were now open, but was told that only one, the Theatre de la Hotel de Ville was open. The look of alarm must have registered with the clerk--she asked me if I would like information on how to receive a refund. Thinking this was a bad sign, I said, yes, hoping for the best but preparing for the worst.
Well, the worst is what I got. I went into the Theatre at my appointed time and was immediately surprised to see that workers were still everywhere, and that the venue looked, at best, half-finished. I had, per instructions, left my cellphone at home, expecting to receive a special device that would guide me through the exhibit. The instructions made it sound as if this was the key to my 'personal experience' that would be created from the rather invasive questionnaire that I filled out online as part of the registration process.
Well, once inside, I could see no place to obtain this device, and when I finally asked a rather harried young man about it, he explained sheepishly that the devices were not available yet. Asked when they might be and where I could expect to find them, he could only say that he didn't know.
I found my way into one of the (only) functioning parts of the exhibit, a film screening in a large and virtually empty auditorium. There was a indeed a film being shown, but the sound was so poor that I could not hear, let alone follow the dialog. And the film itself was unremarkable--poor lighting, awkward camera angles and a general lack of any action. This I might have forgiven if, as I say, I could hear the dialog. After watching this for about ten minutes, the screen went blank and another harried young man came up to tell me that the film had experienced 'technical difficulties'. Asked when it might resume, he simply shrugged and said he didn't know.
Ok, fine. I went back out into the exhibit space and stood in line to use one of the silver film booths set up on the mezzanine. A few minutes into the wait, yet another harried young man approached those in line, explaining further 'technical difficulties' had rendered most of the viewing booths inoperable. A few were working, he said, but the wait (after one filled out some sort of waiver) would be forty minutes to an hour. I left the line after hearing this, thinking with my 'unlimited' visa, I could just come back later. The woman in front of me, with a three hour visa, had no such luxury and elected to wait. One hour later, I walked by and she was still waiting.
I went back down the the ground floor to begin exploring the rest of the exhibit, but increasingly found this hard to do because there simply was no exhibit. I tried to enter the 'Brain' segment but was told by a rather surly guard that it wasn't open.
I retreated and opted to explore the 'Future' segment. I went into the stairwell and walked up several flights, eventually ending at a door with some indication that the 'apartments' were on the other side. I asked if this was the case, was told yes (ah success!) and went in. The 'apartments' were nothing less than a joke, small rooms 'furnished' with junk items that were clearly picked up from a garage sale and placed haphazardly on tables and dressers. It had a depressing 'Soviet-style' air about it, but more like what a young French millennial thought it might look like. Just random and sad. In one room, to which I was not allowed access, I could see an amazing 'Soviet' Macbook on the table--who knew, eh?
And in one of the rooms, someone had cut up an onion, presumably with a spoon, given the look, and put pieces of it into some tin bowls, like this was supposed to be dinner. I thought perhaps the intent might have been to introduce the smell of onion into the air, to add 'authenticity' to it, but this, like so many other aspects of the display, seemed to be the result of laziness (at best) and outright deception (at worst) and had only the effect of making me wonder who had even bothered to do this. No doubt, someone who was thinking of lunch, and only wanted to be done and gone.
In another room hung a tapestry, with a crude representation of what I assumed was supposed to be a family--a man, a woman and a child. I knew of their sexes at least, because each of the figures was adorned with crude but very obvious genitalia. I can't read Russian, of course, so I don't know what the saying or slogan was at the top, but I found myself wondering where in the world someone had found this and why they thought it was something that a typical Soviet might have on their wall. Oh, and from the looks of it, this was supposed to be a child's bedroom, with a stuffed bear and some games scattered about to give us clues about what the child might have been up to before being escorted out to the gulag. I can't help but think of that poor child, staring at the graphic tapestry, clutching his little bear hoping for some kindly storm-troopers to come and rescue him. I know life was bleak for the Soviets, but this little tableau had obviously no connection to the real world. Just junk collected and assembled in no order and with no meaning.
I left the apartments and asked the young woman standing outside (also, yes, harried) if they were still working on the displays. She said, no, except for a few details, this was complete. I think she saw the look of dismay on my face, but I opted not to tell her what I thought of it. My question really said it all.
After this, I wandered up and down the stairwells, searching for but finding no other content whatsoever. Looking for 'Animal' took me up five or six flights of dilapidated stairwells (which were not designed to reflect Soviet grimness, but instead reflected the laziness and incompetence of the designers of the show) and arrived at a dead end. A trip down to the bottom of the stairwell where I hoped to find 'Motherhood' yielded only another bored looking guard.
I did manage to get into one of the operating viewing booths on the ground floor, after being told that the film being shown on that level was 'complet'. Given a number hastily scrawled on a piece of paper and shoved into a plastic holder, a young woman guided me to the booth. It looked like it had been built the day before, raw wood and tape holding it together. I suppose that was meant to reflect more of the Soviet grimness, but by now my charitable assumptions were gone and I knew it to be the result of poor planning and execution, not by design.
Inside I managed to view a few of the films, but like the experience in the theatre, the sound was bad (in spite of having headphones) the film quality was poor, the camera angles were awkward (often lingering on the person who was not speaking) and often the scenes were obviously staged, or part of some introduction being given to the 'actors'. Nothing useful in terms of emotion or the experience were presented--it was as if instead of trying to edit or select interesting content, they decided to simply 'use' it all. The grid presentation was unhelpful and had the look of some crappy porn site, with the viewer being required to select the clip based on the tiny hint given on the thumbnails. In this booth, there was an iphone, shoved into a wooden base, and on it was the message 'swipe to continue your experience'. This yielded nothing but a view of some unknown person's face, and nothing happened.
The only functioning parts of the exhibit seemed to be those designed to make money: the cafe and the gift shop. The cafe was manned by at least a half a dozen bored baristas--bored because there were no customers, and the gift shop had little to offer other than postcards and glossy photo books. Most of the shelves were lined with canned goods, most of which had no labels, as if, not having a sufficient supply of actual Soviet canned goods, the staff had made do with modern cans of tuna, disguised as 'Soviet' by a lack of label. I felt sorry for the wax figure of a woman by one of the shelves, forced to peer over her glasses at this tawdry fake display for eternity. At least I could get out, and I did, right away.
I did take the time to talk with a young woman at the entrance, who was very kind, but clearly frustrated at having to tell viewer after viewer that yes, this was all there was to see. She made it sound like more content would becoming, and judging by the number of workers on sight (at least double the number of visitors) they were certainly up to something. And don't even get me started on the faux 'janitors' wearing white jumpsuits and dragging around dry mops. I hope they were well paid, for a more boring and potentially degrading job I cannot imagine.
If I have bothered take the time to write this extended review, it's because I had such high hopes. After all, this is Paris, the 'big leagues' so to speak, where one must bring their best game to succeed. I can't help but think of the concurrent fashion shows--can you imagine if Karl Lagerfeld (for example) put on such a pathetic show for Chanel?
By contrast and for comparison I hold up the show earlier this year at the Palais de Tokyo by Tomas Saraceno. This was an amazing show, visual, tactile and engaging. At every turn was something new, interesting and exciting visually and intellectually. This is sort of art I expected to find at DAU, and if you've read even a portion of this email, you will know that I did not. I have refrained from publishing an extended review like this, limiting my comments to a few on Facebook, but if you've read the reviews in the New York Times and Le Monde, you'll see that my words are not the only critical ones and would, and would, in any case, never reach an audience such as theirs. Ironically the photo that accompanied the Times article came from the exhibit itself and neatly sums it up: Betrayal.
Comparisons to the botched Frye Festival are perhaps unfair--I do not think the organizers of DAU intended to defraud, but the result is much the same. A lot of people spent a lot of money on this, and you would do well to start refunds as soon as possible.
Greetings,
My apologies for writing in English--I confess that while I can understand and speak French to a limited degree, I am unable to write with any certainty. I hope you will understand.
I also hope you will understand why I am writing to request a refund. I signed up and paid for an unlimited visa to the DAU.
My first inkling that this might have been a mistake came when I went by the visitor center at Chatelet on 24 January, when the show was scheduled to open, only to find that it had been postponed. In fact, as I looked at the two venues, I could see that they were still struggling to get them open--workers furiously working on the doors and scaffolding still up at the Theatre du Chatelet. No worries, I thought, as I was not scheduled to receive my 'visa' until the 28th. I had hopes that the technical difficulties would be worked out by then.
I came back to the visa center at the appointed time--thirty minutes early, as advised--and received my visa without delay. A good sign, I thought. I asked if both venues at Chatelet were now open, but was told that only one, the Theatre de la Hotel de Ville was open. The look of alarm must have registered with the clerk--she asked me if I would like information on how to receive a refund. Thinking this was a bad sign, I said, yes, hoping for the best but preparing for the worst.
Well, the worst is what I got. I went into the Theatre at my appointed time and was immediately surprised to see that workers were still everywhere, and that the venue looked, at best, half-finished. I had, per instructions, left my cellphone at home, expecting to receive a special device that would guide me through the exhibit. The instructions made it sound as if this was the key to my 'personal experience' that would be created from the rather invasive questionnaire that I filled out online as part of the registration process.
Well, once inside, I could see no place to obtain this device, and when I finally asked a rather harried young man about it, he explained sheepishly that the devices were not available yet. Asked when they might be and where I could expect to find them, he could only say that he didn't know.
I found my way into one of the (only) functioning parts of the exhibit, a film screening in a large and virtually empty auditorium. There was a indeed a film being shown, but the sound was so poor that I could not hear, let alone follow the dialog. And the film itself was unremarkable--poor lighting, awkward camera angles and a general lack of any action. This I might have forgiven if, as I say, I could hear the dialog. After watching this for about ten minutes, the screen went blank and another harried young man came up to tell me that the film had experienced 'technical difficulties'. Asked when it might resume, he simply shrugged and said he didn't know.
Ok, fine. I went back out into the exhibit space and stood in line to use one of the silver film booths set up on the mezzanine. A few minutes into the wait, yet another harried young man approached those in line, explaining further 'technical difficulties' had rendered most of the viewing booths inoperable. A few were working, he said, but the wait (after one filled out some sort of waiver) would be forty minutes to an hour. I left the line after hearing this, thinking with my 'unlimited' visa, I could just come back later. The woman in front of me, with a three hour visa, had no such luxury and elected to wait. One hour later, I walked by and she was still waiting.
I went back down the the ground floor to begin exploring the rest of the exhibit, but increasingly found this hard to do because there simply was no exhibit. I tried to enter the 'Brain' segment but was told by a rather surly guard that it wasn't open.
I retreated and opted to explore the 'Future' segment. I went into the stairwell and walked up several flights, eventually ending at a door with some indication that the 'apartments' were on the other side. I asked if this was the case, was told yes (ah success!) and went in. The 'apartments' were nothing less than a joke, small rooms 'furnished' with junk items that were clearly picked up from a garage sale and placed haphazardly on tables and dressers. It had a depressing 'Soviet-style' air about it, but more like what a young French millennial thought it might look like. Just random and sad. In one room, to which I was not allowed access, I could see an amazing 'Soviet' Macbook on the table--who knew, eh?
And in one of the rooms, someone had cut up an onion, presumably with a spoon, given the look, and put pieces of it into some tin bowls, like this was supposed to be dinner. I thought perhaps the intent might have been to introduce the smell of onion into the air, to add 'authenticity' to it, but this, like so many other aspects of the display, seemed to be the result of laziness (at best) and outright deception (at worst) and had only the effect of making me wonder who had even bothered to do this. No doubt, someone who was thinking of lunch, and only wanted to be done and gone.
In another room hung a tapestry, with a crude representation of what I assumed was supposed to be a family--a man, a woman and a child. I knew of their sexes at least, because each of the figures was adorned with crude but very obvious genitalia. I can't read Russian, of course, so I don't know what the saying or slogan was at the top, but I found myself wondering where in the world someone had found this and why they thought it was something that a typical Soviet might have on their wall. Oh, and from the looks of it, this was supposed to be a child's bedroom, with a stuffed bear and some games scattered about to give us clues about what the child might have been up to before being escorted out to the gulag. I can't help but think of that poor child, staring at the graphic tapestry, clutching his little bear hoping for some kindly storm-troopers to come and rescue him. I know life was bleak for the Soviets, but this little tableau had obviously no connection to the real world. Just junk collected and assembled in no order and with no meaning.
I left the apartments and asked the young woman standing outside (also, yes, harried) if they were still working on the displays. She said, no, except for a few details, this was complete. I think she saw the look of dismay on my face, but I opted not to tell her what I thought of it. My question really said it all.
After this, I wandered up and down the stairwells, searching for but finding no other content whatsoever. Looking for 'Animal' took me up five or six flights of dilapidated stairwells (which were not designed to reflect Soviet grimness, but instead reflected the laziness and incompetence of the designers of the show) and arrived at a dead end. A trip down to the bottom of the stairwell where I hoped to find 'Motherhood' yielded only another bored looking guard.
I did manage to get into one of the operating viewing booths on the ground floor, after being told that the film being shown on that level was 'complet'. Given a number hastily scrawled on a piece of paper and shoved into a plastic holder, a young woman guided me to the booth. It looked like it had been built the day before, raw wood and tape holding it together. I suppose that was meant to reflect more of the Soviet grimness, but by now my charitable assumptions were gone and I knew it to be the result of poor planning and execution, not by design.
Inside I managed to view a few of the films, but like the experience in the theatre, the sound was bad (in spite of having headphones) the film quality was poor, the camera angles were awkward (often lingering on the person who was not speaking) and often the scenes were obviously staged, or part of some introduction being given to the 'actors'. Nothing useful in terms of emotion or the experience were presented--it was as if instead of trying to edit or select interesting content, they decided to simply 'use' it all. The grid presentation was unhelpful and had the look of some crappy porn site, with the viewer being required to select the clip based on the tiny hint given on the thumbnails. In this booth, there was an iphone, shoved into a wooden base, and on it was the message 'swipe to continue your experience'. This yielded nothing but a view of some unknown person's face, and nothing happened.
The only functioning parts of the exhibit seemed to be those designed to make money: the cafe and the gift shop. The cafe was manned by at least a half a dozen bored baristas--bored because there were no customers, and the gift shop had little to offer other than postcards and glossy photo books. Most of the shelves were lined with canned goods, most of which had no labels, as if, not having a sufficient supply of actual Soviet canned goods, the staff had made do with modern cans of tuna, disguised as 'Soviet' by a lack of label. I felt sorry for the wax figure of a woman by one of the shelves, forced to peer over her glasses at this tawdry fake display for eternity. At least I could get out, and I did, right away.
I did take the time to talk with a young woman at the entrance, who was very kind, but clearly frustrated at having to tell viewer after viewer that yes, this was all there was to see. She made it sound like more content would becoming, and judging by the number of workers on sight (at least double the number of visitors) they were certainly up to something. And don't even get me started on the faux 'janitors' wearing white jumpsuits and dragging around dry mops. I hope they were well paid, for a more boring and potentially degrading job I cannot imagine.
If I have bothered take the time to write this extended review, it's because I had such high hopes. After all, this is Paris, the 'big leagues' so to speak, where one must bring their best game to succeed. I can't help but think of the concurrent fashion shows--can you imagine if Karl Lagerfeld (for example) put on such a pathetic show for Chanel?
By contrast and for comparison I hold up the show earlier this year at the Palais de Tokyo by Tomas Saraceno. This was an amazing show, visual, tactile and engaging. At every turn was something new, interesting and exciting visually and intellectually. This is sort of art I expected to find at DAU, and if you've read even a portion of this email, you will know that I did not. I have refrained from publishing an extended review like this, limiting my comments to a few on Facebook, but if you've read the reviews in the New York Times and Le Monde, you'll see that my words are not the only critical ones and would, and would, in any case, never reach an audience such as theirs. Ironically the photo that accompanied the Times article came from the exhibit itself and neatly sums it up: Betrayal.
Comparisons to the botched Frye Festival are perhaps unfair--I do not think the organizers of DAU intended to defraud, but the result is much the same. A lot of people spent a lot of money on this, and you would do well to start refunds as soon as possible.
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