Les Arts Decoratifs

One rainy day, my boss recommended that I go see the museum, Les Arts Decoratifs inside the same huge building as the Louvre. It is open late on Thursdays so I stopped at the Hotel de Ville exhibit before heading over. The clouds looked ominous so I got in line for the exposition at Hotel de Ville, thinking that I would make it inside before the rain- I was SO wrong. Il pleurait comme une vache qui pisser. It rained up, down, and sideways. I was soaked by the time they let us through the queue (which, side note: they only allow a certain, very small, number of people in exhibits, so they literally count one person out, one person in Not exactly efficient). The exhibit was interesting though, squeaky shoes and all. It was a photography exposition of 5 french photographers and their vision of Paris. It was called Izis Paris des rêves, meaning Paris of my dreams. I was so excited because I knew all of the streets, corners, and bridges that the photos were from. They were all in black and white too, so it was quite elegant.
At Les Art Decoratifs, there is a lot of furniture (les meubles), spanning from the Moyen Age/Renaissance to Art Deco/2000s. Some of the pieces were interesting and I liked the little faux rooms from each time period. But the coolest part was the giant Playmobile (yes, the toys) exhibit called Galarie des jouets! Look, the Playmobile house that Pam sat on! Another interesting part was the exhibit on Publicite (Advertisements). They had collected 150 public service advertisements in France, including commercials, and displayed them in an exhibit. This inspired the topic for my Internship report (6-10 page paper, in French, on a cultural difference in France that relates to our internship field- just so you know that I’m earning my credits). The government allows certain time on television and radio for public service advertising. (I’ll explain more when I actually research the paper.) Finally, I am working on a project at work for a furniture company and making a marketing concept book on the forms of the body and influences in furniture (huh?), so sending me to a furniture museum makes a lot more sense, but I’m still unclear about the project—

Oh, culture…