Frac Occitanie Montpellier
Founded in 1984, the Frac Occitanie Montpellier (Frac OM) has built up a collection featuring all contemporary art mediums, in groupings that offer insights into many of the issues facing society. Comprising nearly 1,300 works, it addresses the renewal of conventional forms (painting, sculpture, drawing) and innovation in techniques of imagery and sound (photography, video, film, sound works), as well as the way that art is becoming more open to objects (installations), images and signs (formal pieces), and to the living environment and the many different settings in which art is presented.
This diversity brings to the collection both a heritage value and an equally important link to the current situation, with an ever-present focus on emerging artists and the younger generation. The collection is the inalienable property of the Occitanie/Pyrénées-Méditerranée region.
Since 1998, the Frac OM’s main exhibition space has been a handsome venue in Montpellier (with an adjacent storage facility section). Each year it plays host to four or five exhibitions, along with a cultural agenda for all. The Frac OM also showcases its works throughout the Occitanie region and further afield, in partnership with a large number of public and private structures, including schools and historical monuments, heritage sites and museums, and art centres. Cultural outreach activities and educational materials also supplement these events.
Since 2016, the Frac OM has developed two major programmes. One is the ‘Post_Production’ project, conducted with the region’s art schools (in Montpellier, Nîmes, Pau-Tarbes and Toulouse), whereby four artists from these schools are given the opportunity to be involved in a production and group exhibition; the other, in conjunction with les Abattoirs, Musée – Frac Occitanie Toulouse, is the ‘Horizons d’eaux’ initiative, which presents the collections and new productions in partner sites along the Canal du Midi each year.
Could you briefly explain why you decided to apply for the position of director of Frac OM?
After 17 years at the Villa Arson in Nice, I simply wanted to work differently, to be confronted with different audiences, new challenges and new experiences.
Were there any things you discovered that particularly caught your eye when you were preparing your application?
I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the work in the field, particularly in disseminating the collection, was still very active, and that the team was very committed and invested. It’s very reassuring on the one hand, but a little worrying on the other, because it’s not normal for this commitment not to be recognized for its true worth.
Can you sum up the main thrusts of your artistic and cultural project for the Frac in a few lines?
Above all, I want to take the time to listen to the team and all our partners in the region, and not come up with ready-made ideas without being aware of existing expectations or limitations. What’s more, no artistic and cultural project will really be able to develop until we’ve resolved the problem of our local people, which are currently divided into three distinct areas in and around Montpellier. It’s totally schizophrenic to work in these conditions. It doesn’t facilitate internal dialogue and creates teams within teams.
In the meantime, of course, we’re going to get on with the job and try to implement certain actions. In particular, I’d like to see the principle of acquisition evolve towards more structured and structuring field projects, towards commissions with local partners, towards works that integrate the life of communities or social-professional groups. It’s not going to be easy, because this kind of ambition is always complex to achieve, but it’s worth a try.
How do you see the Frac’s relationship with its territory? What areas would you like to develop?
By changing the principle of acquisitions to commissions, we will be able to establish a different kind of dialogue with our partners, going beyond the traditional loan of artworks. This does not call into question the work of disseminating the collection, but it does allow us to be more “active”, more rooted in the region, in life.
What specific features of the collection would you like to highlight?
None in particular, because the great advantage of a collection such as that of the Frac Occitanie Montpellier (with over 1300 artworks) is that it offers a multitude of perspectives, making it a vast field of experimentation for its dissemination. I like the idea that you can enter the collection through several doors, and then browse freely. As I’ve wandered around the collection’s website over the past few weeks, I’ve made some wonderful discoveries about artists I knew little or nothing about.
What new audiences would you like to mobilize? What strategies and actions would you like to develop?
Here too, I want to take the time to discuss with the team the relationship with the public that the Frac has maintained in recent years. I want to understand what is being done with the collection. But in any case, you can’t create a link with the public by sitting comfortably on old-fashioned principles of mediation. Beyond the “educational” content, the dissemination of the collection must be a pretext for creating social links by reaching out to wider networks, not just to organize simple exhibition visits, but to be as inventive as possible. For example, Gaëlle Saint-Cricq, who is in charge of public relations, is organizing a series of pleadings on art on October 18. I don’t know what the outcome will be, but I like the idea. I’m also very attached to the performing arts, as well as to the spirit of the fêtes votives, which are still very much alive in Occitanie, and which are often unique in their entertainment. For example, I’d like to organize balls for certain vernissages in rural towns, inviting young local music groups. I’ve also proposed launching a program of processions conceived and designed by artists, in conjunction of course with local authorities.
How does the Frac fit in with today’s major ecological and digital challenges?
Let’s be honest, there’s an obvious paradox between the necessary and indispensable mobility of a Frac in its region and the principles of any eco-responsible policy, the basis of which is to reduce mobility as much as possible. This being the case, within a year I intend to propose a strategic plan to address these “challenges” as you call them. This plan will go hand in hand with a proposal on premises, on the principle of acquisitions, on the dissemination of the collection and on our actions. In any case, this plan will not involve dreams of big, shiny buildings or energy-guzzling events. I dream of a Frac on a human scale, close to people, close to everything.
What makes an artist’s work particularly interesting to you?
I’m very pragmatic in my conception of aesthetics. I’m wary of anything that can be summed up in a pitch, an idea or an ideology, because for me art is a sum of experiences that form a mille-feuille of thoughts and forms, frames and vanishing lines. I take a lot of time to “deconstruct” a work of art.
On-site exhibition
Mille Projectiles
12.28.24
Dans les œuvres nouvelles dévoilées dans l’exposition monographique d’Anna Solal au Frac Occitanie Montpellier intitulée « Mille Projectiles », la figure humaine fait son retour au travers de grands dessins à échelle 1 où des personnages, souvent en groupe, apparaissent ; leurs postures rappelant celles que prennent les familles ou bandes d’ami·es pour immortaliser des moments partagés. Leurs têtes sont recouvertes de grandes cocottes en papier, reprenant les principes de filtres Instagram surgissant sur les visages absorbés par les écrans. Ces formes, éléments fantastiques évoquant les mathématiques dans l’univers symboliste d’Anna Solal, illustrent la place qu’ont prise les algorithmes dans notre société. Ces nouvelles règles plus ou moins implicites régissant notre monde nous imposent un hyper contrôle de l’image de soi par rapport aux autres. Le filtre Instagram est un masque, et les tableaux d’Anna Solal inscrivent ces accessoires d’un nouveau type de carnaval dans une certaine histoire de la peinture.
Cet espace offert à la figure humaine impose la représentation du portrait, individuel ou en groupe. Héritière de grands artistes comme les photographes August Sander ou Walker Evans qui représentent les différentes classes sociales de leur temps, Anna Solal s’est très tôt attachée à la figure du banlieusard, qu’on trouvait déjà dans ses premières productions. Cette figure est reliée à une autre récurrence importante dans l’œuvre de l’artiste, celle du lien à l’autre.
La littérature, poésie ou prose, infuse également le travail d’Anna Solal. Les figures singulières voire solitaires du XXe siècle la passionnent. Elle retient par exemple de l’écrivain allemand Ernst Jünger la dimension animiste montrant la possibilité du Mal chez l’Humain dans un univers naturel magnifiquement décrit. Chez la poétesse coréenne Kim Hyesoon, elle observe la capacité à transcrire les expériences les plus marquantes de la vie par un style expérimental, décrivant la spécificité de l’existence d’une femme. Elle chérit aussi la capacité toute particulière de Jean Genet à lier tendresse et brutalité, et à convoquer des éléments archétypaux comme les fleurs pour représenter ce paradoxe. La férocité propre aux images symboliques de Jean Genet, se retrouve dans le titre de l’exposition, Mille Projectiles, qui évoque le feu d’artifice des multiples strates des matériaux qui composent les œuvres d’Anna Solal, comme les multiples techniques qu’elles convoquent. Une dernière référence importante est celle de l’écrivain Edmond Jabès, qui n’a eu de cesse de sonder sa propre judéité pour comprendre l’horreur de la Shoah, en nourrissant une réflexion sur l’écriture et une méditation inquiète sur l’avenir de l’Homme.
Anna Solal a développé son art en se concentrant sur un bricolage assumé et non sur une technicité ancestrale. Elle produit ses œuvres par collage et couture d’objets ou de logos qui créent de nouveaux signifiants. Le fait-main ici n’est pas virtuose, il est volontairement et ostensiblement fabriqué. Très présent dans la pratique de l’artiste, notamment par la représentation des laissés-pour-compte de la société, le déclassement se retrouve dans la pauvreté des matériaux glanés : objets industriels dégradés, mondialisés, typiques de notre époque, comme les écrans ou les puces électroniques, avec leur design caractéristique.
Beauté des fleurs et amoncellements de rebuts électroniques, vêtements ultra contemporains, animaux piégés, ampoules pharmaceutiques et insectes butinant, les relations entre notre humanité et ce qui l’entoure, que ce soit la nature qu’elle altère et la pollution qu’elle engendre, sont au centre de Mille Projectiles. Les allégories nombreuses et paradoxales qui peuplent cette exposition nous autorisent tout de même à imaginer qu’un miracle peut advenir de cette Apocalypse, et qu’il passera par une réconciliation avec le monde vivant et par notre capacité à nous connecter réellement à l’autre, au-delà des écrans et des injonctions à paraitre.
Marine Lang, commissaire de l’exposition
Comité technique d'achat - membres avec voix délibérative (en cours de renouvellement)
Anna Colin
Hélène Guenin
Comité technique d'achat - membres avec voix consultative
Catherine Dumon
Stéphanie Sobezyk
Lauriane Gricourt
Administration
Patricia Carette
Éric Mangion
Contact
Frac Occitanie Montpellier
4-6, rue Rambaud
34000 Montpellier
contact@frac-om.org
T +33 (0)4 99 74 20 35