How long does the ephemeral last?
Greek etymology tells us: for a day(epi hêmera). However, the term can be extended to cover a wide range of temporalities, from a few seconds to several years. Many realities are ephemeral. The world itself is ephemeral (1), as André Malraux put it. It's a joy when, amidst the flash, pop-up, snackable and other anglicisms that proliferate here and there to announce a brief duration, the term "ephemeral" pops up! For the ephemeral seems to overflow with itself. While it sets a limit in time, it also opens the door to a timeless duration.
Work planned for the Grand Palais, which itself replaced a short-lived Palais de l'Industrie in 1900, has given rise to a Grand Palais Ephémère, in place until 2023. It will then be made available for the Olympic Games in 2024. Will this be the end of the Champ de Mars building? Not just yet. For the architectural firm that designed it, one of the key challenges of the project was to enable the building to have a second life elsewhere (2). The architect therefore imagined the entire ephemeral installation as perennial. Contradiction? Not really. Let's go back to what Malrucian says. Where architects conceive of the temporary and durable promised to a second life, the writer and Minister of Cultural Affairs was already evoking the ephemeral and eternal world which, to survive rather than repeat itself, needs mankind so much! (3)
Clara Pagnussatt
(1) André Malraux, L'Homme et la culture artistique, excerpt from speech delivered at Unesco on November 4, 1946
(2) agence-chabanne.fr
(3) André Malraux, Essais de psychologie de l'art, 1950
Image: The Grand Palais Éphémère. Photo credit © Collection Rmn - Grand Palais © Patrick Tourneboeuf
