Public life alternates ups and downs. When Sylvain Amic suddenly had to leave his position as advisor to Rima Abdul Malak after she was ousted last January by Emmanuel Macron in favor of Rachida Dati, he found himself without a base. And thus experiences the precariousness of ministerial advisors. But suddenly the sky clears with the opening of the management of the Orsay and Orangerie Museums, after the departure of Christophe Leribault for Versailles.
There are naturally numerous candidates for this envied position, the ministry indicates that 6 contenders were auditioned including, according to rumors, Olivia Voisin from the Musée des beaux-arts d'Orléans, Sylvie Patry who had left Orsay to join the Mennour gallery or Olivier Gabet curator at the Louvre.
The career of Sylvain Amic (56 years old) argued for his nomination. A former teacher (a good signal for social advancement), he joined the National Heritage Institute in 1997 and took up his first position as curator at the Fabre Museum in Montpellier where he participated in the major renovation project of the museum which reopened in 2007. Then in 2011 he took charge of the Rouen museums and in 2016 expanded his scope by directing the eleven museums in the conurbation. This dual career first in Montpellier then in Rouen and the managerial responsibilities gave him the necessary experience to manage a large Parisian establishment.
The visit to the office of the Minister of Culture allowed him to become better acquainted with national issues. At the cabinet he notably worked on the plan for artistic crafts and restitution laws. Previously he had participated in Françoise Nyssen's plan to develop loans to museums in the region, an argument which resonated in the ears of Rachida Dati who made culture in the territories one of the axes of her communication.
Last argument and not least, Sylvain Amic has a consensual, caring, non-divisive personality. An asset for a museum which has seen several directors succeed one another in a few years and aspires to a form of stability. The fact remains that Sylvain Amic does not come fromestablishment Parisian and that like Serge Lemoine in his time (2001-2008), he will have to establish himself among the 650 agents of the establishment.
