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Almine Rech

Future is now

In the 1970s, when the term ‘contemporary art’ was just emerging, the only institutions devoted to it were also the most important: Le CAPC in Bordeaux (1973), Le centre national et de culture Georges Pompidou in Paris (1977), Le Nouveau Musée in Villeurbanne (1978).

At the same time, a number of art magazines, some of which are still active today, are devoted to criticising and supporting contemporary art. And it was in this as yet undeveloped context that Le Parvis, a ‘cultural development centre’, was founded in 1974, with its atypical (art and consumption) and cross-disciplinary (theatre, cinema, visual arts) dimension, making it one of the pioneering figures in the regional and national cultural and artistic landscape.

In its early days, however, and for the next ten years or so, Le Parvis, which did not have a dedicated visual arts team, was content to hold exhibitions in collaboration with major cultural establishments (CAPC, Centre Georges Pompidou, etc.), albeit prestigious ones, or to give ‘carte blanche’ to the most prominent magazines of the day (Artpress). From the outset, Le Parvis exhibited a number of the leading artists of the day.

But in the 1980s, things changed. Under the impetus of Jack Lang, then Minister of Culture, and his adviser Claude Mollard, the artistic landscape in France changed radically! In a powerful move towards cultural decentralisation, a host of FRACs and contemporary art centres were set up across the country, run by professional teams, to promote an art form and ecosystem that was in the process of being invented.
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