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# Art Museum Promo Video That Gets It (Mostly) Right
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/art-museum-promo-video-that-gets-it-mostly-right/
- Published: 2013-09-25T11:00:20.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:45:02.000Z
- Description: European museums have been slower than North American institutions to adopt a digital forward way of doing things, but the Musée d'Orsay's recent video promotion for their latest show, Masculine / Masculine, is on the cutting edge of the digital wave.
- Author: Hrag Vartanian
- Tags: Opinion, Musée d'Orsay, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 06:59 (2012, 2013, part 2)

![A screenshot from the Musee d'Orsay's video promotion from "Masculine / Masculine. The Nude Man in Art from 1800 to the Present Day" and its inspiration (inset) Jean-Hippolyte Flandrin's "Jeune homme nu assis sur le bord de la mer" (1855) (via Wikipedia)](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2013/09/jeune-homme-nu-assis-home.jpg)

A screenshot from the Musee d’Orsay’s video promotion from “Masculine / Masculine. The Nude Man in Art from 1800 to the Present Day” and its inspiration (inset) Jean-Hippolyte Flandrin’s “Jeune homme nu assis sur le bord de la mer” (1855) (via Wikipedia)

European museums have been slower than North American institutions to adopt a digital-forward way of doing things, but the Musée d’Orsay’s recent video promotion for their latest show, [*Masculine / Masculine. The Nude Man in Art from 1800 to the Present Day*](http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/events/exhibitions/in-the-musee-dorsay/exhibitions-in-the-musee-dorsay/article/masculin-masculin-37292.html?tx%5Fttnews%5BbackPid%5D=254&cHash=77c6929456&ref=hyperallergic.com), is on the cutting edge of the online wave.

While most museum promotional videos fixate on showing us the objects in a particular show — and in the process show us too many things in frames or in darkened rooms with a calming narrative voice, often with a British accent if it’s in English — this video offers an interpretation that sparks your interest in the inspirations behind the various tableaus. As an added bonus, the video has no narration, thus appealing to a more global audience, and the museum allows the scenes that morph from one to another to speak for themselves. It was created by Tito Gonzalez Garcia, a Paris-based French-Chilean director with an [intriguing Vimeo channel](http://vimeo.com/user7584977?ref=hyperallergic.com). As the artistic director for the video, [Lorenzo Papace](http://lorenzopapace.fr/post/61528888254/musee-dorsay-masculin-masculin?ref=hyperallergic.com), explained on his blog (which also includes lots of great behind-the-scenes photos), “C’est un voyage dans l’art et dans le temps.” *It’s a journey in art and time*.

It certainly helps that the show’s theme, masculinity, is a sexy topic, but there are countless other shows that could benefit from selling their art historical shows with a twist. The Metropolitan Museum’s latest show *Balthus: Cats and Girls — Paintings and Provocations* is a perfect example of internet-ready catnip.

The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles (MOCA) has been doing some interesting things with their own [YouTube channel](http://www.youtube.com/user/MOCATV?ref=hyperallergic.com), but their videos still largely tread the well-traveled territory of documentary or — when they’re being adventurous — music videos, but the art in the latter often ends up feeling more like decor than anything else.

But all is not great with the d’Orsay video. I do question the judgment of the creators about the artistic version of [blackface](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackface?ref=hyperallergic.com#Modern-day%5Fmanifestations) they employ in the video in order to emulate the figure in a painting by Kehinde Wiley. While done in an unconventional way (ink spilled into a bathtub) it nonetheless taps into a [much](http://www.torontosun.com/2013/02/26/french-magazine-puts-white-model-in-blackface-for-african-photo-spread?ref=hyperallergic.com) [larger](http://nymag.com/thecut/2009/10/french%5Fvogue%5Fshoots%5Flara%5Fstone.html?ref=hyperallergic.com) [issue](http://www.today.ucla.edu/portal/ut/PRN-there-s-no-defense-for-blackface-111382.aspx?ref=hyperallergic.com), and doesn’t really have a place in an advertisement that aims to appeal to a wide cross-section of the public. Some things may be [lost in translation](http://jezebel.com/5379708/oh-no-they-didnt-french-vogue-does-blackface/?ref=hyperallergic.com) but this isn’t one of them.