The Frac Bourgogne was founded on 9 September 1982, along with the need to build up a collection of contemporary artworks. The first technical acquisitions committee was convened in 1983 and the collection’s history began in 1984 with the acquisition of works by sixteen French and international artists, including Christian Boltanski, Bertrand Lavier, Michel Verjux, Gloria Friedmann, Tony Cragg, Gerhard Richter, Gottfried Honegger and Richard Long.
The latest works acquired – by Lola Gonzàlez, Laure Prouvost, Mika Rottenberg, Louise Sartor, Ashley Hans Scheirl and Martha Wilson – add further chapters to this history.
In 1986, the Frac Bourgogne was one of the first Frac structures to have a specific exhibition area and to insist on the need for having its own premises in order to fulfil its goals of artwork dissemination and promotion. In 2013, it gained a new permanent exhibition space, ‘Les Bains du Nord’. This venue, located in the historical heart of the city of Dijon, consists of a main room and a former shop that has been converted into a facility for hosting artworks and artists’ residencies.
The Frac Bourgogne is not committed to a single venue, but to the nomadic existence of its collection and its ‘utility value’ for dissemination and promotion at regional and national level, and beyond. Exhibitions are organised in a wide range of partner venues throughout the region, thereby enabling an enhanced visibility of the Frac collection and involving venues not normally associated with contemporary art in order to provide a broader offering and reach more diverse audiences.
The Frac Bourgogne is currently furthering its development with a new artistic and cultural project that investigates ‘the narrative and its forms’. This initiative can be summed up in the following words: image and representation, narratives and fictions. The Frac Bourgogne artistic and cultural project explores narrative forms with a clear focus on the still image and the moving image, as well as a particular interest in artists working with the medium of video.
Astrid Handa-Gagnard is an art historian, exhibition curator and lecturer at the University of Burgundy from 2001 to 2017. Formerly general coordinator for Yan Pei-Ming, she has enjoyed a multi-faceted and purposeful career. As director of the Frac Bourgogne since late 2012, she works to enrich its collection and to promote its accessibility to the public and other cultural players.
« Les Bains du Nord »
16 rue Quentin
21000 Dijon, France
Administration
41 rue des Ateliers
21000 Dijon, France
administration@frac-bourgogne.org
T+33 (0)3 80 67 18 18