ARTISTS TALKING

The road bends sharply, taking us deeper into the crevasse. Raging, a nearby torrent engulfs our voices. On our right, we can barely read ‘de l’enfer’ on the façade of a decrepit building. We are in the Vallée des Usines (the factories’ valley) of Thiers, in front of Creux de l’Enfer, one of thirty-two French ‘Centres d’Art’. The Centres d’Art are publicly funded galleries dedicated to contemporary art. Whilst the most famous of them all, the Palais de Tokyo, is in Paris, the vast majority of them are scattered across France in sometimes obscure and unexpected locations.

The small town of Thiers lies in Auvergne, a region of highlands, sleeping volcanoes and thermal resorts, referred to as the ‘Heart of France’. A metaphor, which most French people readily substitute for the ‘Hole of France’, since the 1950s, exodus has emptied Auvergne of its farmers and village dwellers. However, Thiers still holds a place in the French collective memory, as it once flourished as the centre of the knife industry. There the business of crafting knives is gradually making way to the business of art and cultural tourism. The former knife factory ‘Creux de l’Enfer’ was set up as a Centre d’Art in the late 1980s. It kept the name it inherited from its dramatic settings: Creux de l’Enfer (Hole to Hell) and overhangs a chute in the shade of a narrow gorge.

I am here to meet Frédéric Bouglé, the director, to talk about Panacea, a collaborative artwork by Zoë Walker, Neil Bromwich and Michael Pinsky. Panacea is a travelling and evolving artwork, which explores notions of wellbeing. The installation is anchored around a maquette representing an idealised park, that functions as a generator of new ideas. One of the Panacea artists is accompanying me on this trip. Inside the Creux de l’Enfer, the sound of the running water is omnipresent. It seeps in through the smallest cracks and resonates on the faces of the cliff. The director isn’t ready, so we are given torches to visit Olivier Leroi’s installation Piéces à conviction. “It’s completely dark down there”, explains the gallery attendant. We smile as we climb down the metallic stairs. Such equipment would be more appropriate for visiting a prehistoric cave. The first room is partially lit but the next one is completely dark. To locate the work we have to wiggle our torches in all directions. One by one, they unveil Leroi’s witty work. One of the pictures, Un grand vide entre le ciel et terre (A big void between heaven and earth) is a big white panel, displaying a couple of hare’s ears coming right to the lower edge of the panel and duck’s feet going right up its upper edge, leaving most of the white background empty.

Creux de l’Enfer invites artists to produce new work responding to the characteristics of the site. Olivier Leroi exploited the cavern-like quality of the basement of Creux de l’Enfer for his installation. Mona Hatoum created La Grande Broyeuse, a giant version of a French kitchen device for slicing or shredding vegetables, specifically for the gallery. This piece was subsequently shown at Tate Britain in 2000.

Showing international artists such as Mona Hatoum alongside national and emerging artists such as Olivier Leroi is central to the Centres d’Art programming strategy. Their primary remit is to show artists who are known to a professional audience but unknown to the general public. In the eyes of the Ministry of Culture, this places the Centres d’Art halfway between a private gallery, whose role is to discover new talent, and a museum, which normally shows established artists. Showing internationally acclaimed artists bequeaths the Centre d’Art a certain reputation, which can then benefit younger artists.

The Centres d’Art were created in 1982 under the auspices of Minister of Culture Jacques Lang, at a time where the French government adopted a ‘decentralisation’ policy by which some of the powers held by the national government would be dispersed, giving more autonomy to local and regional governments. Whilst the French Regional Arts Collections (FRAC) are imposed by the central government into each of the French regions, the decision to open a Centre d’Art’ is always taken at a local level. The Ministry of Culture has outlined research and experimentation as one of their core responsibilities. Though the Centres d’Art must adhere to a definite mission statement, each of them adopts a particular curatorial policy. They are supported by the Ministry of Culture as well as by local and regional authorities. Together they form a formidable network of flagship public galleries, which favours artists at different stages of their career and entices the development and production of new works of art.

The commissioning process can be complex and artists often need the support of an institution, which may or may not be the commissioner. The Centre de Création Contemporaine (CCC) is one of the Centres d’Art to have taken this responsibility.

The CCC located in Tours was amongst the first Centres d’Art to be created. This year, it will celebrate its twenty-fifth anniversary with an intervention by Daniel Buren. As with Creux de l’Enfer, the CCC has established its reputation by showing internationally acclaimed artists such as Daniel Buren, Orlan, and Chen Zhen in parallel to emerging ones such as Cécile Pitois. In 1997, the CCC extended its activity to act as an agency. Under the label ‘Agence d’Artistes’, it functions as an art consultancy for local authorities by advising them on their art policy, and as a commissioning agency for public and corporate organisations. The agency acts as an international ‘broker’ between commissioners and artists, project-manages commissions and initiates public art projects. In some cases, the CCC commissions new artworks, which remain the property of the artist, on the condition that the CCC can show it for three years.

The CCC has also implemented a corporate sponsorship programme, through ‘Art et Entreprise’, a three-step artist-in-residence scheme for businesses, mostly factories, that leads to the production of a new artwork. The first phase of the residency is dedicated to research and development during which artists familiarise themselves with their partner through a series of meetings with the managerial and non-managerial staff and on-site visits. In a second phase, artists develop the concept of the work they want to produce and decide the process. The third phase sees the realisation of the artwork in collaboration with the enterprise, provided that the latter is interested in acquiring it. The first and second phases are financed by the CCC, whilst the third phase would normally include the purchase and therefore financing of the artwork by the hosting company.

The director of the CCC, Alain Julien-LaferiÈrre, a man with an infectious enthusiasm, insists he is the first curator to show Panacea. He introduces us to Claude Lefebvre, a local street-lighting company. This contact later proves invaluable, sponsoring and producing Life Pulse, a key commission for Panacea.

On the road to Pau, as we expected, a sign indicated the Centre d’Art. We soon reach the outskirts of Ibos and drive past a shopping centre; in front of us, a long stretch of road cuts through cultivated fields. We have to turn back. The Association of Art Centres Directors website (www.d-c-art.org) indicated ‘Route de Pau’. These are the only details we have but we are confident we have enough information for such a rural location. Back on the road to Ibos, framed by the Pyrenees, we spot the same sign, only this time we realise that it is vaguely pointing in the direction of the hypermarket. We didn’t expect the art gallery to be so close to a shopping centre. We park the car, and start looking around: still no sign of the elusive building. Disconcerted, we walk towards a phone box. On the way, another sign jumps out at us revealing that the Centre d’Art is inside the shopping centre.

The director, Odile Biec, smiles at our disbelief. She explains that Le Parvis was built in the early 1970s at the same time as the hypermarket. Alongside the art gallery is a national theatre and a cinema. The then director of the hypermarket had a vision to bring culture and commerce together. Visiting an art exhibition should be as casual an act as doing the weekly shopping. For twenty years, Le Parvis has hosted solo shows by international artists such as Peter Fischli/David Weiss (2000), national artists such as Alain Séchas (1998), and emerging talent.

As at Creux de l’Enfer, Le Parvis encourages the production of site-responsive artworks. Working on the themes of disasters and of human fascination for violence, Swiss artist Christoph Draeger conceived Natural Born Killer (2000), an installation halfway between a cinema and a vandalised supermarket. However, not all exhibitions need to be site-specific. During our visit, we discovered recent works by the up-and-coming artist Mounir Fatmi, which are now being shown as part of Africa Remix.

In the past, Le Parvis has also produced off-site works; Andy Goldsworthy was asked to realise an artwork in the adjacent city of Tarbes. In 2002, it commissioned an architect, Claire Petetin to build Vidéo K.01, a “house of moving images” to be used in public spaces. Placed in another Leclerc shopping centre in Pau, Vidéo K.01 took the idea initiated in Ibos one step further. The kiosk appears as if it has been dropped on the ground floor of the commercial space (the Ibos venue is on the first floor), behind the line of Leclerc cash registers, on the way out of the supermarket. It is constructed from translucent panels and lit from behind by coloured neon lights. The playful appearance of the structure precedes an intimate experience. Shoppers and art-goers are invited to watch videos by various artists in a space big enough to shelter a dozen people from the frantic rhythm of the shopping centre.

To accompany commissions and exhibitions, Le Parvis publishes and distributes artists’ catalogues, books and DVDs. Whilst Le Parvis adapts the format of its publications to suits artists’ practice, le Creux de l’Enfer normally produces a bilingual book (French and English) that forms part of the ‘mes pas à faire’ series. Besides these publications, the Centres d’Art also produce exhibition catalogues in association with other art institutions.

The Centres d’Art provide artists working and showing in France with a remarkable set of opportunities: a plethora of high quality exhibition spaces; the commissioning of new work and the publishing of artists’ books and catalogues. They play an active role in the shaping of the French visual arts sector. The autonomy of their management gives them enough flexibility to promote emerging artists alongside more established names, a symbiotic relationship that benefits both the artists and the curatorial programme. Acting as commissioning agencies, many have expanded their activities beyond the walls of the gallery. In a country where much of the political and economical power still resides in Paris, it is natural to expect the best of the art venues to congregate within its sphere of influence. However, those with the determination to escape the capital will be rewarded to discover that art in the provinces is anything but provincial.

Panacea was shown at CCC from January to April 2005. It tours to John Hansard Gallery, Southampton from 26 July – 10 September 2005 and will be shown at Le Parvis in early 2006 before returning to the UK to Cornerhouse, Manchester.