INFO THE FIGARO – The former collaborator of Brigitte Macron and the current director of Islamic arts at the Louvre have been appointed to head these two national museums by the Minister of Culture. Versailles remains to be filled, which “is not on the agenda”, according to Rima Abdul Malak.
The ball of major appointments, expected by cultural circles, is open. According to our information, it starts with the appointment of Pierre-Olivier Costa, head of the MuCEM in Marseille and Yannick Lintz as head of the National Museum of Asian Arts-Guimet, in Paris.
The name of the first had been circulating for ten days. Passed by the RMN, the Center Pompidou then by the town hall of Paris, Pierre Olivier Costa was, for five years, director of cabinet of Brigitte Macron. Endowed with a solid sense of organization, communication and politics, he is faced with a major challenge.
Coming from the Élysée, he will first have to fight suspicions of having been appointed because of his proximity to the First Lady. The latter was however reserved for the idea of separating from his closest collaborator, and ended up being convinced by the Minister of Culture. “He proposed a project opening the MuCEM to social issues, including youth, health or biodiversity, all in a multidisciplinary spirit” explain to Figaro Rima Abdul Malak, who saw Pierre Olivier Costa at work both at the Élysée and at the town hall of Paris, under the Bertrand Delanoë era. We also do not know the appetite of the newcomer for Euro-Mediterranean civilisations. But Pierre Olivier Costa is from Marseille, which is a plus: knowing the city’s ecosystem is essential to be one of its players.
Yannick Lintz, “the strongest”
The second, a doctor of history, initially a teacher, studied at the Louvre Museum, where she has held since 2013, the head of the department of Islamic arts. We owe him, in 2021, the operation “Arts of Islam, a past for a present», that is 18 exhibitions of Islamic art presented in 18 cities, at the same time. “Of the 3 or 4 candidates in the running, Yannick Lintz was the most solid, the most open and the quickest to organize links with the territory” continues the minister.
In nine years, the former president of Guimet, Sophie Makariou, had succeeded in bringing the museum out of a form of torpor, launching major exhibitions, giving carte blanche to contemporary artists and working to make the establishment attractive to less than thirty years old. “All this must be continued, but it also remains to find other resources for the museum, through sponsorship or partnerships, as well as to give new impetus to the international, which has been weakened by the crisis. sanitary».
There are still several major positions to be filled in culture, for which the Minister would like to hire “a dynamic of openness and renewal“. The Sèvres factories are looking for a successor to Romane Sarfati, who has made it known that she wanted to fly to other horizons. The replacement of Stanislas Nordey, at the National Theater of Strasbourg (TNS) is also under discussion. There is also Versailles, whose president, Catherine Pegard is not only reached by the age limit, but also in “interim– his mandate having ended. “Change is not on the agenda” assures the Minister of Culture. After having convinced the First Lady, it is now the President of the Republic that Rima Abdul Malak must convince to make a decision, one way or another.