Art historian Laurence des Cars has just been appointed president of the Louvre in Paris, the most visited museum in the world.
Laurence Des Cars at the Musée d'Orsay (Paris) on March 24, 2021.
At 54, art historian Laurence des Cars, general heritage curator, specialist in 19th and early 20th century art, has just been promoted to head of the Louvre Museum in Paris, replacing Jean-Luc Martinez, 57, who had held this position since 2013 and was seeking a third term.
The first woman to lead the Louvre since its creation in 1793
After 228 years, she will be the first woman to lead the Louvre since its creation in 1793. Her "Louvre 2030" project seems to have seduced the Ministry of Culture, which announced this appointment on Wednesday May 26, 2021 in a press release . "The Louvre can be fully contemporary. We need a step back, we are emerging from a crisis that is destabilizing us (the Covid-19 pandemic, editor's note). We live in exciting but complicated times" , said Laurence des Cars in her first interview given on the airwaves of France Inter .
Trained at the Sorbonne, the Ecole du Louvre and the Ecole Nationale du Patrimoine, Laurence des Cars began her career at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris in 1994, before becoming the Scientific Director of Agence France Museums in 2007, where she was in charge of the development of the Louvre Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates. In 2017, she found herself at the head of the Musée d'Orsay, after that of the Orangerie, of which she is also president. In 2019, at the Musée d'Orsay, his exhibition "Black models:from Gericault to Matisse " which focused on the representation of men and women of color in art, was very successful.
Overcoming the Louvre's 2020 financial deficit
Laurence des Cars is one of the rare women to have directed major French museums. "This shortage is a consequence of the fact that official institutions do not reach out enough to women or do not give them enough confidence ", she said in an interview with New York Times , in 2018. The new president of the Louvre will take office from September 1, 2021. Laurence des Cars will be challenged to overcome the 2020 financial deficit of the Louvre, the pandemic having put an end to international tourism (only 2.7 million visitors in 2020) . Under the direction of Jean-Luc Martinez, the Louvre had become the first museum in the world by welcoming more than 10 million visitors in 2018. The Louvre, like all museums, has just reopened after six months of closure.