Many things in Paris feel just a bit out of place.  The Eiffel Tower was initially described as “an eyesore” and “detestable” by Parisians; and the modern, business-centric area of La Defense makes you wonder if you’ve been plopped down on another continent.  To be added to that list is the Centre Pompidou, and in it, an abnormal placement of a new piece of artwork, a mélange of photography and image transposition.  On the Back of the Sign was the 2009 winner of the annual Le Prix Fondation d’entreprise Ricard recognizing European artistic achievement.  It’s a photograph of the back of the Hollywoodland sign (as it was in 1932) transposed over newspaper articles describing the suicide of Peg Entwistle, an aspiring actress who infamously jumped off the H.  The creation of artists Ida Tursic and Wilfried Mille, both born in 1974 and from the former Yugoslavia, is placed next to a room of minimalist art – straight lines and single-color paintings, an awkward neighbor for such a symbolic and intentionally complex piece of art.

The Centre Pompidou, opened to the public in 1977, was, itself, the product of an architectural competition.  President Georges Pompidou wanted a modern museum in the center of the city that was full of not only paintings but also included elements of theater, music, movies, and texts.  Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers were the winning architects and their controversial design was meant to evoke “a constraint-free architecture in the spirit of the 1960s,” according to the museum’s literature.  Still not accepted by all as an appropriate building for central Paris, the see-through structure shows color-coded piping and keeps its system of escalators on the exterior of the museum to allow for more room inside and sweeping views of the city.  Although its bright colors and huge square shape look out of place in Paris, as with the Eiffel Tower decades ago, it has become increasingly appreciated and fits into the image of a progressively artistic city.

Artists Ida Tursic and Wilfried Mille worked together to create an image that sums up the darker side of celebrity that pops from the wall even beneath its dark, dreary and dripping colors.  The original photograph, transposed over anonymous newspaper articles about the suicide, changes what can be seen depending on where you stand while viewing the piece of artwork.  In certain spots, only the newspaper articles can be seen.  In others, only the sign can be seen, and, in some, only dark colors are visible.  The piece of artwork allows you to choose how you’d like to view it, but more importantly, it becomes a way of looking into a dark past through a lens of the muddled present.

It’s often that cities and people are given an appeal that they’re not deserving of.  Old Hollywood and the American cinema are often viewed as the quintessential package of American success while a different reality lurks behind it.  On the Back of the Sign convincingly shows the grimy and industrial back of the Hollywoodland sign, and, in doing so, reveals the true nature of not only Hollywood, but the reality of what we cannot see or choose to not see.