The Centre Pompidou, referred to in the diary as Beaubourg, is recorded through two visits a decade apart, each making the institution a different kind of encounter. In 1977, it was a setting for publicity and a guided passage through works and collections; in 1987, it became the destination for a visit organized around exhibitions, with the building’s own modern design leaving an impression as vivid as the art. Together, the entries show the center as both a public cultural institution and a place assessed through the diarist’s immediate, personal reactions.

A book signing and a guided tour

On the 1977 visit, the Centre Pompidou followed a sequence of interviews arranged by Flammarion, the diarist’s French publisher. The interviews were with Le Monde, Le Figaro, and Elle. Afterward, the diarist took a five-dollar cab to the center to sign copies of The Philosophy of Andy Warhol at its bookshop. The visit thus began not with private contemplation but with the public-facing work of publishing: press interviews, a journey across Paris, and a signing for visitors.

The scene around the signing brought together distinct audiences. Shirley Goldfarb and Daniel Templon were present, as were about a hundred young people in punk clothes, whom the diary describes disparagingly as dirty kids. Templon was due to present the Hammer & Sickle show the following Tuesday. The center’s bookshop was therefore not simply a stop between interviews and sightseeing: it placed the diarist’s published work and forthcoming exhibition in a setting where art-world acquaintances and a conspicuous younger crowd met.

Pontus Hulten, the center’s director, then appeared and took the diarist and Bob Colacello on a tour. They first saw a large Tinguely sculpture being constructed in the middle of the ground floor. Its unfinished state made the museum visit include the making of an artwork, not only the viewing of completed displays. Hulten also led them to a storeroom filled with chocolate and gave them some. The diary lingers over the room’s smell, an intensely sensory detail amid the formal progression through art and collections.

From there, the tour moved through the Kienholz exhibition, a Paris/New York show scheduled to open the next week, and the permanent collection. The route took two hours. Bob Colacello was exhausted by the end, while the diarist still had energy and wanted to hurry home to paint. That contrast gives the visit its personal endpoint: the institution offered an extended succession of works and spaces, but the diarist’s attention finally turned from looking at other people’s art toward making his own and away from society portraits.

Crowds, art, and the diarist’s attention

The 1977 account sets several modes of cultural activity side by side. The signing connected a commercial book with the center’s bookshop; Templon’s planned exhibition pointed toward the next week; Hulten’s tour joined a work in progress, current exhibitions, a forthcoming show, and the permanent collection. The crowd in punk clothing supplied a social presence that did not fit neatly into the more orderly sequence of the guided tour. Rather than explain the group’s response to the art, the diary records their appearance and number, keeping the account anchored in what caught the diarist’s eye.

The chocolate storeroom and the unfinished sculpture are especially revealing details about how this visit is remembered. One is a large artwork still being assembled in a central part of the ground floor; the other is a room of food encountered behind the scenes. The diary registers both with concrete immediacy, but the chocolate’s smell receives the more intimate description. Its attention moves freely between art, people, refreshments, and the practical demands of a working day, resisting any division between a museum visit and the ordinary experiences within it.

A return a decade later

On January 19, 1987, the diarist returned to the Centre Pompidou with Chris Makos, who got them in free. They saw Julian Schnabel’s exhibition first. The diarist thought it looked great and judged Schnabel to be a talented artist. They then went up to a Japanese exhibition, which prompted a contrasting response: the diarist felt that it copied everything from the West and noted the presence of a lot of Frank Lloyd Wright. These assessments are presented as immediate personal judgments, not as a fuller account of either exhibition.

The visit also made the building itself an object of attention. After seeing the shows, the diarist went down to use a bathroom featuring a large sheet of glass with water running behind it. The arrangement was so unusual that, without Chris Makos’s explanation, the diarist would not have known where to urinate. It looked like a fountain. The episode turns an ordinary bodily necessity into an encounter with modern design: the room’s appearance briefly obscured its function, and a companion’s practical guidance made it usable.

Across the two visits, the Centre Pompidou is associated with different forms of access and attention. In 1977, the director’s tour opened a route through a sculpture under construction, exhibitions, and the permanent collection, while a book signing and punk-clad crowd brought the institution into the diarist’s working and social life. In 1987, free entry through Chris Makos, divergent reactions to two exhibitions, and a disorienting bathroom supplied the defining details. The diary does not offer a comprehensive description of the center; it preserves a more particular record of what the place enabled, displayed, and made momentarily strange.