Jean-Luc
Martinez, the president of the Louvre whose job security has been a matter of
public speculation for weeks, has had his stay at the museum extended—at least
temporarily. The decision as to
his tenure at the storied museum has been hitherto delayed by culture minister
Roselyne Bachelot-Narquin’s battle with Covid-19, which saw her hospitalized
for three weeks, returning to work on April 12.
Martinez,
an archaeologist who joined the Louvre in 1997 as a curator of Greek sculpture,
was named director in 2013 by President Emanuel Macron. His leadership has been
fraught in recent years, with supporters lauding the 2017 launch of the Louvre
Abu Dhabi under his leadership as well as a broadening of the institution’s
youthful and international audience, with about half of the museum’s
visitors—which in 2018 totaled more than ten million—being under the age of
thirty and three-quarters of them coming from outside France. Meanwhile,
critics have decried various merchandising initiatives, including an ill-timed
partnership with Airbnb and a sponsorship deal with French automaker DS
Automobiles that led to the marketing of a limited-edition car called the
Louvre. A recent gallery restoration that clashed with an in-situ Cy Twombly
work and sparked a lawsuit has been another bone of contention, though Martinez
has said that the renovations were planned in 2008 and that the American artist
was aware of their imminence when he completed the work in 2010.
Bachelot-Narquin
is known to support Martinez’s reappointment but at least half a dozen
candidates are also believed to be in the running for the post, including the
heads of the Guimet and Petit Palais museums in Paris (Sophie Makariou and
Christophe Leribault respectively), along with Martinez’s colleagues including
the director of the Louvre-Lens outpost, Marie Lavandier. Last month, Vincent
Noce reported that longstanding opponents and would-be candidates to the top
job at the Louvre have unleashed “a downpour of stink-bombs”. Should Martinez be reinstated to his post, the stint at
the museum’s helm would be his last, in accordance with French law.
The
embattled director of the Musée du Louvre in Paris, Jean-Luc Martinez, has had
his contract temporarily extended by the French culture ministry. He has been
named the “interim director” while French President Emmanuel Macron decides
whether he should continue in the post.
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