Taking another pass at Easter Island's story
In an era of lowered expectations, the exposition about Easter Island is worth a look.
It comes for free, certainly the right price these days, and in a low-toned, less than riveting way goes after what it says is a myth about man's irrepressible self-destructiveness - a parable forced on what's rather gently suggested is an overdrawn link between the island's extraordinary statues and its civilization's downfall.
Since Paris at recession's precipice is not offering enormous new extravagance - give or take a magazine ad pitching limited edition men's perfume in 100 milliliter snail-shaped bottles at €800, or $1,070, a throw - you could do worse than wandering at no cost into a slice of controversy.
The exhibition hall belongs to the foundation of Électricité de France, the country's former electricity monopoly.
For decades, EDF has played so big and rich and rough in the business world that the foundation's shows inevitably seem intent on lacquering it as a caring environmentalist. Currently butting heads with Warren Buffett in a megabuck takeover deal involving U.S. atomic energy suppliers, EDF rarely turns away from the tender touch of its corporate PR airbrushers. A couple of years ago, EDF ordered up a television commercial set on Easter Island. Against a background of its powerful moai, or statues, EDF was cast as a protector of renewable energy while the island's ancestors were turned into miscreants of historical proportion who used up their woodland (and virtually destroyed themselves) by making wooden sleds for transporting the increasingly enormous statues from the quarries where they were sculpted.
Oh, those passionately creative but unthinking primitives!
Recalling that the commercial had been called an outrage, or at least a misrepresentation, and that Chile had made its displeasure known, I took a look at the show, which runs until March 1 (Espace Fondation EDF, 6 rue Récamier, Paris 75007)....