Centre Pompidou, collection permanente

Salut!
So yesterday, continuing my tradition of visiting a new museum each Wednesday, I headed to the Pompidou.  I always pass it on bus 38, and I've been inside once for its free reference library, but I hadn't seen any of the collection.  It's a modern art museum, which isn't really my thing, but since being in Paris is about trying new things, expanding my horizons, and the such, I figured I should give modern art another go.  So I spent the afternoon wandering around their permanent collection (free to students!), which includes art from around the world, dating from the 1960s to the present day (okay, maybe not quite actually today, but there was stuff from 2011).  Another part of their permanent collection focuses on art from the earlier 20th century, but I didn't have time to see it yesterday afternoon.  As some of you may know, I tend to go through museums very slowly!  Anyway, I actually enjoyed the collection more than I expected; I liked most of the works on display because they didn't look like something I'd be capable of creating!  My main problem with modern art is when you dump a pile of plastic straws into a corner created by a ripped-open cardboard box and call it art.  I could do that, but it would just be called a mess!!  (I saw such a work at Bard's museum of contemporary art once, and I haven't gone back since.)  Anyway, most of the works at the Pompidou were pretty cool--there were only a few that I wasn't crazy about.  And there were some video installations as well.  I liked the one that showed a group of nine British school children discussing a painting by Picasso (but the painting is never seen in the movie).  But there was one I didn't like as much, because it was playing the kind of creepy music that you hear in old, black-and-white, Cold War era movies when aliens are about to invade/have just invaded Earth.  It was in black and white and showed a man walking in circles around this obelisk with a bunch of sheep following him.  Every now and then, a bell tolled, and every now and then, another sheep would come trotting in from outside the shot and start following the rest.  Sometimes when one felt it was too far behind, it trotted to catch up with the one in front, and then the sheep behind it followed suit.  It was kind of freaky, which I'm sure was the effect the artist was going for, but it's not really my cup of tea...
Anyway, aside from the art itself, there are a couple of other really cool aspects of le Centre Pompidou:
1) The inside-out, color-coded architecture: according to my handy Fodor's Paris 2011, the green pipes are air vents, the blue are water (or maybe I have that backwards), the yellow are electrical, and red parts are for things like elevators and escalators.  And by inside-out I mean that the piping and such is all visible on the inside of the building, as well as on the outside!  It's pretty wacky, even for Paris.

View of the lobby from the second story--note the pipes along the ceiling.

A model of the museum, in the museum!  It shows the pipes along the exterior pretty well.

2) The aforementioned elevators and escalators are located on the outside of the building, protected from the weather by clear tubing, so you get a great view of the city!  I could see Sacré-Coeur, Notre-Dame, and the Eiffel Tower, but as it was rather foggy, they didn't come out too well in my photos.   (I guess I'll just have to go back!)

You can sort of see Sacré-Coeur in the background... 

another walkway... from the escalator

3) You're allowed to take photos inside!  Of the building, and of the art!  That's pretty rare for museums here.  So here are some of my favorite and one of my less favorite pieces.

Okay, here's what I mean... art?  I don't know.  I could do this!  And it would just be Christmas decorations at best. 

You can see me reflected in the mirror...

They had this room all padded in rolled up felt.  It was based off something an artist did for a friend who lived in an apartment with noisy neighbors.  It was pretty smelly, though--old carpet, ugh!

And it's within easy walking distance from the apartment here!  Since we're near the southern edge of the 10th arrondissement, which borders the 3rd, it's an easy walk.  I could have taken bus 38, but since it's less than half an hour by foot, I figured I'd get the exercise!  So, all in all, a good afternoon.