Picasso Museum In Paris Opens After Long Delay, Huge Cost Overruns, Lots Of Acrimony
But welcome to France! After a five-year closure for what was supposed to be a two-year refurbishment, Paris’s Picasso Museum re-opened Saturday with big arguments over the $66-million project still reverberating. French President Francois Hollande said at a ceremony the museum was “one of the most beautiful in the world and one of the most moving because it brings together the considerable and prolific work of the best-known artist of the 20th century.” The ceremony, though, did little to hide the rancour surrounding the project, which featured the sacking of its director, a blast of criticism from the artist’s son, lengthy delays and a huge budget overrun. The museum — housed in a 17th-century mansion in Paris’s trendy Marais quarter — has been extensively modernised and enlarged to more than twice its previous size.
