The Pompidou Centre is a multicultural complex in France, which houses a museum, a center for music and acoustic research and a library. Paris, the city of art, offers broad and generous support regarding art, as is expected. The Project for Contemporary Art (le Projet pour l’art contemporain /PAC), which was established in 2002, has a unique approach to administration. The curators and collectors together make the direct decisions about whether to purchase a piece of art. Jonas Storsve, who is the curator of the Department of Graphic Art of the National Museum of Modern Art and serves as the supervisor, selected pieces of utmost importance from the decade since the museum’s establishment for this exhibition held currently in the Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art.

The exhibition is comprised of two parts: the introduction and “Fruits de la Passion” (Fruits of Passion). The first part “the introduction” exhibits the masterpieces of modern art. Although modern art seems difficult to comprehend, the passion of artists exists in each touch or each color of paint. You will get a glimpse of the passion of these artists from the subtle variation.

Cy Twombly “Untitled” 1969 © Cy Twombly Foundation © Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI / Philippe Migeat / Dist.RMN-GP

Cy Twombly is an American abstract expressionist artist. You will see some lines like little scratches on the gray surface in the “Untitled”. These lines could be ones that a small child scribbled by chance on the wall or handwritings erased halfway and forgotten… Its interpretation can vary, but somehow either sounds bittersweet.

In the second part of the exhibition “Fruits de la Passion”, the pieces of art selected from the Pompidou Centre are on display. You will find out the diversity, depth and fun of contemporary art through the pieces displayed that show you various expressions at each step.

Isa Genzken “Untitled” 2006 © Isa Genzken / Courtesy Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Cologne / Berlin © Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI / Georges Meguerditchian / Dist.RMN-GP

Isa Genzken is a leading artist in Germany who creates sculptures using a variety of materials. Her work can be especially stoic for sculpture. “Untitled” is a sculpture made of the materials in our daily lives, yet it gives you a kind of strict and cold impression. The light from the grass, varying with different angles, generates the beauty which can seem to be one that keeps everything at a distance.

Farah Atassi “Workshop” 2011 © Farah Atassi © Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI / Georges Meguerditchian / Dist.RMN-GP

Farah Atassi is a promising artist born in 1981. Her artwork is a space created exclusively with mosaics, pursuing thoroughly the possibility of them. The buildings in the space are somehow unnatural and they compete with the space made of mosaics. This piece of work seems to be pop at first glance, but it can make you feel even the distortions of modern society.