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Musée d’Orsay shocks with erotic promo video

This week The Local is handing its prestigious "Only in France" award to Paris's famous Musée d’Orsay, whose promotional video for its new exhibition has got pulses racing beyond the French art world. Let's just say it's "Not Safe For Work".

Published: 15 October 2014 16:52 CEST

Musée d'Orsay shocks with erotic promo video

"This is not just marketing. This is art". That's why the Musée d'Orsay gets The Local's "Only in France" award this week. Photo: Musée d'Orsay

Dozens of people lie naked on the floor, all intertwined in a writhing, squirming mess, as arms reach up grabbing and groping at the bare flesh.

It might sound like a scene from one of DSK’s notoriously sordid sex parties, but it is in fact a video advertising a new exhibition at Paris’s famous Musée d’Orsay.

The Musée d’Orsay, which stands on the banks of the River Seine has been forced to defend itself this week over its provocative marketing campaign for its new exhibition “Sade: Attacking the Sun” (Sade. Attaquer le soleil), which opened this week.

The exhibition is aimed at highlighting the literature of France’s notorious philosopher turned erotic writer the Marquis de Sade through various artworks by painters such as Goya, Gericault, Rodin and Picasso.

But the promotional video for the exhibition does not feature these works, which was described by one French media outlet as “most unexpected from a cultural institution”.

“This is not just marketing, there is real artistic work behind this,” a spokesperson for the museum told the Nouvel Obs magazine.

Decide for yourself by watching the video below and ask yourself could you imagine London's National Gallery doing a similar marketing campaign?

(WARNING: This clip contains lots and lots of nudity)

Given the nature of the video, what is perhaps more expected is how popular it’s proved.

Since it went online on October 8^th, it has been viewed over 150,000 times – however Musée d’Orsay bosses shouldn’t perhaps count on all those viewers turning up for the exhibition.

The promotional clip hasn’t proved everyone’s cup of tea and after several people expressed their outrage it was banned from being viewed by minors on YouTube due to its sexual nature.

For their part the Musée d’Orsay has apparently enjoyed the buzz that the video has made.

Join the debate about the video on our Facebook page

“I understand the video may be disturbing but at the same time the subject of the exhibition is demonic. When you visit Sade, you don’t expect to see something conventional,” a member of the museum’s management told Nouvel Obs.

The museum basically summed up their decision to plump for semi-erotic video by explaining that they had difficulty coming up with ideas for other visuals.

“In the end we decided to film the naked bodies rather than the artworks,” said the museum.

The Musée d’Orsay has history when it comes naked flesh.

Last year it’s exhibition “Male Nude” saw the assets of Naked men displayed in the hallowed halls of the museum.

The controversial exhibition displayed 200 works about male nudity dating as far back to 1800 and had the art world in Paris buzzing.

Last week's "Only in France" award was won by two politicians who had a heated grammar debate in the National Assembly. SEE LINK BELOW

Only in France: French lawmaker fined over grammar dispute

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African-born director's new vision for Berlin cultural magnet

The “Haus der Kulturen der Welt” (House of World Cultures), or HKW, was built by the Americans in 1956 during the Cold War for propaganda purposes, at a time when Germany was still divided.

New director Ndikung said it had been located “strategically” so that people on the other side of the Berlin Wall, in the then-communist East, could see it.

This was “representing freedom” but “from the Western perspective”, the 46-year-old told AFP.

Now Ndikung, born in Cameroon before coming to study in Germany 26 years ago, wants to transform it into a place filled with “different cultures of the world”.

The centre, by the river Spree, is known locally as the “pregnant oyster” due to its sweeping, curved roof. It does not have its own collections but is home to exhibition rooms and a 1,000-seat auditorium.

It reopened in June after renovations, and Ndikung’s first project “Quilombismo” fits in with his aims of expanding the centre’s offerings.

The exhibition takes its name from the Brazilian term “Quilombo”, referring to the communities formed in the 17th century by African slaves, who fled to remote parts of the South American country.

Throughout the summer, there will also be performances, concerts, films, discussions and an exhibition of contemporary art from post-colonial societies across Africa, the Americas, Asia and Oceania.

‘Rethink the space’

“We have been trying to… rethink the space. We invited artists to paint walls… even the floor,” Ndikung said.

And part of the “Quilombismo” exhibition can be found glued to the floor -African braids laced together, a symbol of liberation for black people, which was created by Zimbabwean artist Nontsikelelo Mutiti.

According to Ndikung, African slaves on plantations sometimes plaited their hair in certain ways as a kind of coded message to those seeking to escape, showing them which direction to head.

READ ALSO: Germany hands back looted artefacts to Nigeria

His quest for aestheticism is reflected in his appearance: with a colourful suit and headgear, as well as huge rings on his fingers, he rarely goes unnoticed.

During his interview with AFP, Ndikung was wearing a green scarf and cap, a blue-ish jacket and big, sky-blue shoes.

With a doctorate in medical biology, he used to work as an engineer before devoting himself to art.

In 2010, he founded the Savvy Gallery in Berlin, bringing together art from the West and elsewhere, and in 2017 was one of the curators of Documenta, a prestigious contemporary art event in the German city of Kassel.

Convinced of the belief that history “has been written by a particular type of people, mostly white and men,” Ndikung has had all the rooms in the HKW renamed after women.

These are figures who have “done something important in the advancement of the world” but were “erased” from history, he added. Among them is Frenchwoman Paulette Nardal, born in Martinique in 1896.

She helped inspire the creation of the “negritude” movement, which aimed to develop black literary consciousness, and was the first black woman to study at the Sorbonne in Paris.

Reassessing history

Ndikung’s appointment at the HKW comes as awareness grows in Germany about its colonial past, which has long been overshadowed by the atrocities committed during the era of Adolf Hitler’s Nazis.

Berlin has in recent years started returning looted objects to African countries which it occupied in the early 20th century — Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Namibia and Cameroon.

“It’s long overdue,” said Ndikung.

He was born in Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde, into an anglophone family.

The country is majority francophone but also home to an anglophone minority and has faced deadly unrest in English-speaking areas, where armed insurgents are fighting to establish an independent homeland.

One of his dreams is to open a museum in Cameroon “bringing together historical and contemporary objects” from different countries, he said.

He would love to locate it in Bamenda, the capital of Cameroon’s restive Northwest region.

“But there is a war in Bamenda, so I can’t,” he says.

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