David M.
Yelp
The collection of this museum is truly outstanding, but it is the most poorly organized and disjointed presentation of its assets of any museum I have ever been to. After security & tickets, one gets to the exhibition space via a loooooooooong, winding, uphill climb which wastes the visitor's time and energy. Worse yet, an opportunity to introduce the guiding philosophy and organization of the collection is lost. There must be a reason, beyond entertaining little children, to have a river of swirling words projected on the floor, but no explanation or challenge is apparent.
Finally arriving on the exhibition floor, one realizes the museum designers have a plan for the visitor to follow a prescribed route around a loooooong ellipse divided into continental regions. It's not easy to find specific materials if one doesn't want to take the whole world tour and whatever guiding principles determine the order of presentation were lost on me. One culture here, another there with little attention to history or context, just loads of fantastic specimens. And some gaping holes-for example, only 3 textiles representing 2-3000 years of pre-Columbian weaving traditions. The labels were sometimes hard to find or poorly informative (in English). There was very little in depth information for the non-French speaker; perhaps there is in the audio guide.
In short, I've been here several times, since shortly after it opened, hoping it will get better. Alas, no. It is the museum I love to hate because it could be and I want it to be so much better. I hope someone will get the message.
Would give 5 stars for the objects in its possession, but only 1 for museum experience.