The Minister Of Culture

Christine Albanel has been named Minister of Culture, replacing the much disliked Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres. A few days before the appointment, Didier Rykner, an art historian and expert in matters of France's national cultural heritage, administrator of the excellent website devoted to the state of the arts in France: La Tribune de l'Art, made a brief evaluation of her then-rumored appointment:

It is rumored, and our own sources confirm it, that Christine Albanel will inherit the Ministry of Culture. This is good news if for no other reason than it signals the departure of Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, one of the worst ministers to hold this post, one of the most sectarian as well, who engaged in witch hunts that belong to another age. (...)

Christine Albanel, "agrégée" in modern literature, former writer for Jacques Chirac, has been, for five years, president of the Public Establishment of Versailles. She has hardly been brilliant in this post having implemented a highly debatable policy (on restoring Versailles). Still we hope that her new duties force her to rise above all that. We also hope that she proves herself to be more open to criticism than her predecessor.

When her appointment became official he added:

The Public Establishment of Versailles will necessarily need a new president. It would be desirable that an art historian be chosen, but it is clear that there is little chance of that happening.

The story of what is happening at Versailles is very long and cannot be discussed here. I'm reading through a long description by Didier Rykner of the restoration project and the wrongheaded concepts being implemented, such as restoring what "might have been" instead of researching history to find out what actually was, and attempting to turn the Park into a type of playground à la Disney, for the purpose of profit. These misdeeds are largely the responsibility of Christine Albanel. If you know French, you can read the article for yourself here. You will also see photos of the vandalism that has taken place on the grounds.

Regarding the term "public establishment", it refers, in the case of Versailles, to a State-controlled organization, subject to public law, having a certain degree of administrative and financial autonomy, whose goal is to fulfill a mission of general interest, other than industrial or commercial.

The following facts are from Le Figaro:

Christine Albanel was born on June 25, 1955 in Toulouse. Her father Jean-Claude Albanel was a doctor. Her mother was born Lucile Bez. She is divorced from Philippe Guilhot de Lagarde and is the mother of one child: Antoine Valroff.

She has held numerous posts as "chargée de presse", "chargée de mission", technical advisor, and assistant supervisor of office personnel, primarily in the service of Jacques Chirac when he was mayor of Paris, and later when he became president.

She was president of the Public Establishment of Versailles from 2003 until her appointment as Minister of Culture.

She has written 3 plays: Les Palhasses (1983), Hôtel Sawat et de la Plage (1984), Barrio Chino (1984); one novel: A Senseless Mother (1994).

She has been named Knight of the Legion of Honor.

An article from RTL describes one of her first duties as minister - visiting various museums during the "Nuit des Musées" (Museum Nights), a yearly event in France and Europe when museums stay open late. This year 960 French museums and 850 others throughout Europe participated in the event. She began at a museum called Mac/Val in Vitry-sur-Seine, dedicated to contemporary art, then visited the Château de Versailles where she had worked for four years, and ended her evening at the Rodin Museum in Paris. The article quotes her as saying, a propos of Mac/Val:

"Cultural democracy is a very big stake. A place like this is the archetype of what needs to be done: to make people think, laugh , smile. It's a beautiful symbol."

Le Conservateur posted a short article on Christine Albanel expressing his great displeasure with the work she had accomplished at Versailles:

The desire to increase the number of visitors results in a denaturing of the site and a rapid degradation of the buildings and gardens where numerous acts of vandalism are only the most visible signs of decay. (...)

I have already said many times at this blog that the Ministry of Culture ought not to exist. It represents a concept of official culture worthy of East Germany from the 1950's. This ministry contains a hidden vice: it brings together the world of the media, such as live spectacles and part-time performers on the one hand, and the silent world of cultural patrimony, which does not attract the crowds or the media, on the other. (...)

To save our patrimony, which is threatened with dissolution pure and simple, we need a non-political agency. But that is not on the horizon today, and we regret this bitterly.

While it is too soon to judge Christine Albanel, she seems to be, like her boss Nicolas Sarkozy, a person of her times, a product of all the cultural changes that began in the 1960's.

A Ministry of Culture, like our Supreme Court, must remain faithful to the past, to what has been constructed so laboriously by the millions of people who lived before us. Change takes place around us all the time. There is no need to glorify these changes just because they represent the trends of the times. Eventually some of these changes will take their place as part of the national heritage, but they have to stand the test of time, and they have to be subjected to severe scrutiny by experts and public alike. They have to hold their own with the works of the past before they can be considered patrimony.

Today we tend to confuse the latest fad with "art" and we call someone who is merely talented a "genius". If you belong to a think-tank you are "brilliant". And if you write a play or two, you may become Minister of Culture!