L’ART AU CENTRE

On November 24, 25 and 26, 2017, France’s centres d’art will celebrate their network’s 25th anniversary by offering a three-day contemporary art event to all members of the public at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, France.

The event will present the work of some 50 artists, reflecting the forms of art that the centres d’art exist to support, produce and distribute, through performances, videos, as well as readings, sound works and concerts. Hundreds of publications produced by the centres d’art will also be available for viewing. A monumental wall will give a panoramic view of the thousands of artists that have been presented by centres d’art since they were created.

Many invited guests will be on site, testifying to the rich relationships that the centres d’art nurture with their environment at the local, national and international levels: artists, art critics, curators, philosophers, sociologists, historians, economists, gallerists, foundation representatives, and contemporary art figures. For this occasion, the Galerie Haute in the Palais de Tokyo will become an agora where all of these people can meet for debates, round table discussions, lectures and personal accounts revolving around three themes that represent central concerns of centres d’art: the freedom to create and experiment, the contemporary art economy, and the links between democracy, audiences and territories.

Founded in 1992 and supported by the Ministry of Culture, d.c.a / French Association for the Development of Centres d’Art Contemporain currently unites 50 contemporary art centres within a major network that promotes access to contemporary art for all the public, raises the national and international standing of the centres d’art by organizing events in France and abroad, and promotes the specific action of the centres d’art in the contemporary art ecosystem, in collaboration with art schools, public collections, museums, and private organizations.

Every year, the contemporary centres d’art attract 1.6 million visitors (including 200,000 schoolchildren), exhibit 2000 artists and produce 1000 works. They are veritable art production laboratories where the art of today and tomorrow is invented, produced and exhibited. They are organisations founded on the principle of experimentation and innovation, constituting incubators of know-how in the service of art, its thinking, its production, its mediation and its communication.