Leaving my mark on the Pompidou

     The Pompidou is full of amazing artwork from top to bottom; some questionable, some beautiful, and some that you can't even understand.  So when Bob told us to choose one piece of artwork for our chronique that week, I had no clue which one to choose.  According to Merriam-Webster's Dictionary, art is "something that is created with imagination and skill and that is beautiful or that expresses important ideas or feelings."  Can one really put a definition on art though?  More often than not, when something is assigned a label there are certain restrictions and limitations that go along with it.  For that reason, art can't be defined as being one thing, which is exactly what is evident at the Pompidou. 

     While there were many pieces that caught my eye at the Pompidou, only one moved me like no other.  It's called "Cafe Little Boy" by Jean-Luc Vilmouth.  What makes this piece so spectacular is the heart-warming story behind it. Upon doing some background research on the piece, I discovered that Vilmouth got his inspiration for the piece from the bombing of Hiroshima.  The bomb was nicknamed, "Little Boy," and it completely destroyed Fukoromachi, a primary school in Hiroshima.  All that remained after the bomb was a single wall, on which the survivors wrote messages to their beloved families and friends who were taken by the bomb. 

     Vilmouth took that concept and transformed it into a bitter-sweet art installation in the Pompidou.  Today, people can leave their own colorful message or drawing on the walls.  As you can see from the pictures, the walls are completely covered with drawings to the point where it resembles a colorful, fluffy cloud.  To the left, you can see my drawing of a tree that I used to leave my semi-permanent mark on the Pompidou.  On the wall to the left, there's a numberless clock that has a continuous second hand, but minute and hour hands that remain on the time the bomb fell.  This is a detail most people overlook because, unfortunately, the majority of the museum's visitors don't know the full story behind the piece.  

     This is sad because people can't fully understand the loss and beauty that goes along with it.  Had I not done my research, I would have just assumed that this was one of those typical interactive art pieces one finds in contemporary museums.  However, "Cafe Little Boy" is clearly much more than that.