Museums in Paris reopened this afternoon (16 November), following a minute’s silence at 12pm to honour the victims of the terror attacks on Friday 13 November. The French ministry of culture issued a statement announcing that the city’s cultural institutions, which were closed over the weekend, would be open again from 1pm. The Musée du Louvre, the Centre Pompidou, the Grand Palais, the Musée du Luxembourg and the Palais de Tokyo confirmed the news via social media. The network of 14 municipal museums, including the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris and the Petit Palais, is due to return to its normal Tuesday to Sunday week tomorrow, 17 November.
Fleur Pellerin, the minister of culture, reaffirmed the importance of culture as a “symbolic place of discovery…and exchange” in the wake of the attacks at the Bataclan concert venue and the Stade de France stadium, among other locations. “These attacks targeted places of entertainment, togetherness and leisure,” Pellerin said in a statement addressed to ministry staff. “I call on everyone to show unity and solidarity. It is the best response that the Republic, the Ministry of Culture and Communication and its agents can bring to those who threaten us.” The ministry, which held an emergency meeting with senior culture representatives on Sunday 15 November, is assisting institutions to tighten security measures “on a case-by-case basis”.
According to French media reports, the 32-year-old artist Alban Denuit, who taught at Bordeaux Montaigne university and was represented by Galerie Eponyme in Bordeaux, was among the 89 people who died at the Bataclan. The music journalist Guillaume Decherf, 43, and the architect Quentin Mourier, 29, were also killed at the venue. A 29-year-old Moroccan architect, Mohamed Amine Ibnolmobarak, a teacher at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture Paris-Malaquais, died after being shot at the bar Le Carillon. The identities of the total 129 victims continue to emerge.
UPDATE: The German art critic Fabian Stech was killed at the Bataclan, according to the art publication Monopol.
