2. 外语
  3. Until recently, the Louvre, France’s iconic museum wouldn’t have dreamed of rolling out the red carpet for international partygo

Until recently, the Louvre, France’s iconic museum wouldn’t have dreamed of rolling out the red carpet for international partygo

admin2011-03-10  53
问题   Until recently, the Louvre, France’s iconic museum wouldn’t have dreamed of rolling out the red carpet for international partygoers, however rich, avowing food and drink to be served in a gallery. Fund raisers may be standard practice at American museums, but then no American museum is like the Louvre which has served as the state-funded bastion of high culture in France for much of its 800-year history. A succession of French Kings built their art collections there, and in 1793, shortly after the French Revolution, it was turned into a museum that is now easily the most popular in the world. Last year it drew 8.3 million visitors-more than a million of them American.
   But times are changing, state funds are tight, and the Louvre has an ambitious director named Henri Loyrette, who is seeking to pull the venerable institution into a new era. Tapping rich people around the globe for funding is just one of the changes he’s brought about since becoming director in 2001. Armed with a vision of the Louvre as a beacon of culture that is both accessible and global, he has set in motion a dramatic opening to the outside world. So far, that includes signing a deal to create a Louvre museum in Abu Dhabi—a franchising concept pioneered by the Guggenheim—and staging exhibitions of the museum’s treasures in such places as Kobe, Japan, and Macau. U.S. museums are particularly benefiting, and not just the usual Louvre partners like New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Loyrette set up an unprecedented three-year partnership with the High Museum in Atlanta and has sent exhibitions to cities like Seattle and Oklahoma City. Most controversially, he has invited contemporary artists to exhibit at the Louvre and even decorated it—provoking howls of protests from French detractors.
   Loyrette, 56, says his goal is not to be controversial just for the sake of it. But he insists, "In a house like this, you need to open the windows. We hadn’t aired for a long time. " Some of what he’s doing is experimental, he acknowledges.
   There are some limits. The Louvre still takes its public service mission very seriously, and its lending policy isn’t limitless either: earlier this year, the Louvre pulled out of a show that a private promoter was mounting in Verona, Italy. The Louvre would have received $6.4 million for its participation, but the idea of working on a commercial basis with a private operator rather than a museum caused some concern among curators. Cason Thrash also ran into restrictions on what she could do at her fund-raising party. Still she gushes about Loyrette. "Henri’s a visionary. He totally gets it," she says. "It’s time for the Louvre to spread its wings. "
   Not everyone shares her enthusiasm. Just ask Marc Fumaroli, who chairs the Society of Friends of the Louvre, a 3-year-old French association that helps finance some of the museum’s acquisitions. With 70,000 members, most of whom pay a $100 annual subscription, it still packs some clout. Furmaroli is frank about the criticism. There’s particular concern about the way the museum is sending out its treasures. "Some think there is excessive exportation" is how he puts it, although he acknowledges that "as one of the biggest museums in the world, the Louwe cannot escape the consequences of globalization. "
   The other big complaint is about the contemporary art. Fumaroli wrote an indignant article about the biggest show to date. He dismissed it as pantalonnades-pantomime.
   If you ask Genevieve Bresc-bautier, the crnsty chief curator of the Louvre’s sculpture department, what has changed in the Loyrette era, she’ll grumble a bit about the heavier load of administration that comes the way of the museum’s seven departments. She’s also not convinced that appointing department heads for just three years at a time is a smart move. (Until Loyrette came ahmg, they were appointed fro" life.) But then she’ll start to talk about the "very expensive" $3.7 million Austrian bust that the Louvre was able to buy in New York for her department and the ambitious exhibition of French bronzes she’ll be putting on later this year, not to mention the restoration budget, which is "incomparably bigger than it was a decade ago. "  
Which inference about the Louvre before Henri Loyrette’s era is INCORRECT?
选项 A、No dinners have ever been served in the Louvre.
B、Financially, the Louvre solely depended on the French government in most of its history.
C、Contemporary. art has long been playing an important role in the Louvre.
D、The Louvre has never been rented for private use.
答案C
解析 推断题。根据第一段第一句可知[A]符合文意；根据第一段第二句中the Louvure的非限制性定语从句的内容，可知[B]的推断正确；第四段第二句中指出，改革后，卢浮宫仍然认真履行其公共服务使命，接下来的事例，即和私人运营合作引起馆长们的焦虑，可推断卢浮宫从来没有租为私人之用，[D]符合文意；第二段末句指出Henri Loyrette邀请当代艺术家在卢浮宫进行作品展，甚至装饰卢浮宫，这一措施招米了法国批评者的反对，第六段也明确指出人们对于Henri Loyrette的最大的抱怨是展出当代的艺术，所以当代艺术不可能已经在卢浮宫中占有重要的地位。故答案为[C]。
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