http://www.monumenta.com/2010/english/monumenta/Monumenta-2010.html
The exhibition which I attended is called “Personnes”, which means both “people” and “nobodies”. It took place in Paris, at the Grand Palais, just in the heart of this marvelous city, which makes actually one of the main criteria of any successful event.
The general atmosphere was very much imposing. You could feel it just at the entrance where was a huge long wall of hundreds of metal numbered boxes, where usually the things of dead people are kept. The exhibition took place in the middle of winter; the artist wanted to achieve exactly this feeling of a cold and gray ambiance. The sound of 400 heartbeats in the 13,500 m² of space and the noise of the crane that was grabbing the clothes up and down from the 15m high mountain of dress – made it even more striking. So, you could easily understand the idea of oppression, war and suffering, walking through the scattered cloths, interacting with the installation itself, becoming part of it…
Grand Palais is a very well known spot, being almost in the middle of the famous Champs-Elysees street which is a logistically easy approachable area, with parking nearby and a huge main entrance. All this makes an easy access to the exhibition, with enough space for puffer zone. Also to mention is that the big area is an advantage for an easy evacuation plan.
As about the price: it was promoted for the widest possible access; different people of all ages would pay accessible prices at the ticket box: 4 euros (2 euros for concessions). All this information you could find on the website, as well as the short description of what are you going to see there.
Concerning the marketing, they used all kinds of media, but the main emphasis was put on billboards, as in Paris the information related to artistic events usually is transmitted in this way, most of them posted in metro stations. Actually I wouldn’t say I noticed a great advertising for this exhibition, as I suppose, the name of the artist (Christian Boltanski) is already well known and the venue is also very famous and plus MONUMENTA project which got a lot of attention during the past years. So, just the fact that you read one of these names on a poster, you could already be sure that it’s going to be a great show and there is no need for captivating marketing tools.
The organizers were very careful to the all little elements that would complete an already impressive installation. There were nice people that could anytime help or answer your questions; guides who would fix a group very fast, so that you wouldn’t wait too much; there were flyers, enough information provided in different languages, in order to better understand the idea of the artist. But the most remarkable detail that I noticed was the intelligence of the security. I asked one of them a question and it turned into a discussion about the exhibition for about half an hour. So, I could surely say that the staff was very much educated, which is another big advantage of any successful event.
At the end of the tour, full of emotions, I liked the idea that you could find an area for relaxing. You could watch the other people walking, read news papers or art magazines related to the proper exhibition, find books of the artist or about the artist and even watch the interview with the artist on the screen. You could also go and record your own heartbeats for the artist’s collection and even save it on a CD and buy it for 5 euro if you wished.
In conclusion, I may say that it was a very good experience not just from an artistic point of view, but from a professional perspective too. It was a great example of a very well organized event, starting with advertising, ticket prices, entrance, information provided, general atmosphere, and ending with a highly educated staff.
