CAPC Musée d'art Contemporain de Bordeaux — Attraction in Bordeaux

Though in a building that could be spectacular - think Punta della Dogana in Venice - the contents weren't great, at least on this visit. The ground floor area showed 'Navigation Charts', one of the main works for which Lubaina Himid was awarded the Turner Prize in 2017. I'd read about it and viewed images online, but not seen it in person before. It's disappointing. Elsewhere, in a somewhat rabbit-warren series of spaces, was a show curated from several regional museums. There was a preponderance of works featuring comic book imagery, a love the French share with the Japanese, but which leaves me cold. Other creations looked derivative of leading US artists. Richard Long makes an appearance with a pair of his hand-drawn mud circles on the walls of the top floor café, and a long pile of rocks on the roof terrace. Herein lies the dilemma for galleries like CAPC worldwide. On the one hand they can't (and shouldn't afford) to deck their halls with Gagosians, but on the other their local contemporary art scenes aren't producing the work they feel able to showcase. Having said that there was one quite interesting project on the way in. This was an audience participation work by architect Philippe Jacques and the plastic artist Karen Gerbier. There was no English language translation, but it seemed to be about gathering visitors' views on the future of buildings. Much as I loathe graffiti / 'street art' I have to admit that 'best in show' was the Keith Haring painted on the wall of the elevator shaft. Admission was 7 euros and it's a nice ten-minute walk getting there from...

This was such a disappointment. On the upsite: beautiful building. The giftshop is good. But the exhibition Barba à Papa is not even of mediocre quality. Loosely some artworks have been assembled around the theme of a fair, but seriously, every final exhibition of art school students provides more ideas and images to the mind. On top, it is badly executed. Some installations appeared to not function fully, there were empty spaces in the gallery, and the explanatory signage was quite substandard. To make matters wven worse, I hardly ever saw a less inviting museum cafe/resto. The lade who apparently worked there was smoking outside and looked at me with a "don't dare to disturb me" look. I might also be unlucky since large parts of the museum were closed / not in use (including the elevators), but it is rather unlikely...

I really like weird stuff, and this was seriously weird even for me! The building is stunning. It's a very large converted and renovated church - might even have been a cathedral. Artistically speaking, architecture is my thing, second only to sculpture, and this museum is worth a visit just for that. The icing on the cake for me was an unexpected exhibition of several architectural designs for developments in the Bordeaux area, some real and some futuristic, but all designed to be eco-friendly and sustainable. I spent far more time in here than anywhere else (especially after I mistook an artwork for a table. Which it was 😳). Well...