Tour de France des Frac : Frac Grand Large — Hauts-de-France
Stage 5 of the Tour de France des Frac: the Frac Grand Large — Hauts-de-France
This year we are celebrating a double anniversary: the Frac building and its collection!
The FRAC/AP2, designed by the architects Lacaton & Vassal, is celebrating its 10th anniversary. It has become an essential reference for architecture in France and an inexhaustible source of inspiration. It houses the collection of the Frac Grand Large, which for 40 years has pursued a policy of acquiring art and design and supporting artists.
The “Horizon(s)” exhibition celebrates these two anniversaries by highlighting the quality of a reference collection from the 1960s to the present day, as well as the interactions woven with the Hauts-de-France region. This anniversary is also an opportunity to question the links that the public collection maintains with private collections through an exceptional partnership with the ADIAF. The exhibition “From their time (7)” will offer a unique opportunity to discover the recent acquisitions of committed collectors. 122 works by 111 artists from 58 private collections.
Architecture at the heart of the Frac
The Frac Grand Large was designed by the architects Lacaton & Vassal on the site of the former Ateliers et Chantiers de France.
The architects chose to protect one of the elements that make up the history of the area’s identity by making no changes to the Halle AP2 – Atelier de Préfabrication n°2 – which saw the birth of the greatest ships. The architects chose to juxtapose a double with identical dimensions to this metal and concrete monster.
The functions of the Frac are then contained in an enclosed volume divided into 6 levels, protected by a light, transparent and insulating envelope that creates a bioclimatic intermediate zone. The storerooms, exhibition, mediation and administration spaces are designed to be modular and thus perfectly adapted to the transdisciplinarity implied by current creation.
These buildings thus make it possible to create permanent bridges between the memory and history of Hall AP2 and the contemporary installations.
The 2020-2024 artistic project
“The Frac Grand Large – Hauts-de-France’s artistic and cultural project for 2020-2024 is based on the history of its collection and in particular its line of acquisitions devoted to design since 1983. It is strengthening the interactions between this field and the fields of art, architecture and ecology through thematic exhibitions and invitations to artists, designers and theoreticians.
At a time when we are experiencing a generalized upheaval, a pandemic that has impacted our gestures and representations, it seems all the more necessary to strengthen the ties of the collective by allowing this collection to be freely appropriated. This project thus intends to weave social links through sensitive experiences and to associate the contemporary stakes of globalization with renewed local dynamics.
Reflecting globalization, the acquisitions are now open to different continents to highlight the mobility and circulation of forms, ideas and imaginary. This collection is thus given as “material” to think about and to perceive in exhibition spaces as diverse as schools, media libraries or prisons, creating “contact zones” that are more necessary than ever!
– Keren Detton, director of Frac Grand-Large – Hauts-de-France
Highlights of 2023 not to be missed
Horizon(s), The 40 years exhibition
Until April 23, 2023
With works by : Marie Bourget, Charley Case, Christine Deknuydt, Hans Haacke, Ali Hanoon, Paul Hemery, Ilanit Illouz, Roy Lichtenstein, Helen Mirra, Erez Nevi Pana, Ria Pacquée, Frank Perrin, Catherine Rannou, Joachim Schmid, smarin, UZÉS, Capucine Vever
In partnership with the LAAC, the Musée du Dessin et de l’Estampe Originale de Gravelines and the Musée Portuaire de Dunkerque
To celebrate its fortieth anniversary, the Frac Grand Large invited three Dunkirk museums: the LAAC, the Musée du Dessin et de l’Estampe Originale in Gravelines, and the Musée Portuaire to participate in an anniversary exhibition. These four partners have chosen together, from their collections, works that echo the specificity of the Dunkirk coastline, at the crossroads of the maritime routes. With unique pieces or in series, from recognized artists or anonymous creators, the exhibition invites to develop a common reflection on a shifting horizon. Embracing the reality of an unstable present, the exhibition invites to get lost and to dream of new horizons.
See you at the exhibition’s finissage weekend on April 22 and 23, with special tours, workshops and concerts planned throughout the weekend to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Frac Grand Large!
Free admission.
From their time (7), A look at private collections
Until April 23, 2023
Curator: Keren Detton (Frac Grand Large) and Michel Poitevin (ADIAF)
An exhibition in partnership with the ADIAF (Association for the international diffusion of French art)
As part of the 7th edition of the ADIAF’s triennial exhibition “From their time”, the Frac Grand Large presents a new snapshot of French contemporary art collections through a selection of recently acquired works on the 4 levels of the building. This exhibition provides a unique panorama of recent purchases by French collectors and bears witness to their vitality and passion for the art of their time.
As the Frac Grand Large celebrates its fortieth anniversary – and at the same time the commitment of public policies to decentralization – it was a perfect opportunity to lift the veil on private passions, allowing a broader understanding of the links that the public and the private weave around and with art.
With more than one hundred and twenty works from sixty collections, the exhibition highlights gaps and echoes where particular choices become blurred. On the lookout for novelty, these collectors invite us to navigate within a wide diversity of expressions and to build our own path.
Art & Industry Triennial: Human Warmth / Energy Consciousness
Inaugural weekend on June 10 and 11, 2023
Triennial: June 10, 2023 to January 14, 2024
Curator: Anna Colin & Camille Richert
“In Dunkirk, from June 10, 2023 to January 14, 2024, this second edition of the Art & Industry Triennial will unfold around three emblematic locations of the Dunkirk contemporary art center – the Frac Grand Large – Hauts-de-France, the Lieu d’Art et Action Contemporaine – musée de France (LAAC) and the industrial wasteland of the Halle AP2 – with resonances throughout the Dunkirk territory and the region.
The Art & Industry Triennial is an act of convergence between the Frac and the LAAC, between art and industry, between the Dunkirk area and the Hauts-de-France region, between public institutions and private partners, and with each, as many visions of the project, its intentions and its audience. After GIGANTISM, this second opus entitled Human Warmth / Energy Consciousness, offers new perspectives on art, its history and current creation.
The Dunkerque Triennial has invited two curators, Anna Colin and Camille Richert, assisted by Henriette Gillerot, to design the exhibition’s itinerary. The exhibition will be an opportunity to commission installations, sculptures, paintings or processual and participative projects and to present in Dunkirk national collections of the highest level: the Centre Pompidou and the Centre national des arts plastiques. Numerous regional, national and international partnerships will give rise to artistic invitations, residencies, performance programs, cinema and interdisciplinary meetings.
The Triennial will thus bring together a multiplicity of viewpoints thanks to resonances throughout the Hauts-de-France region. A program that is a source of shared knowledge and emotions, but above all a source of warmth… human!”
Keren Detton, director of the Frac Grand Large – Hauts-de-France, & Sophie Warlop, director of the LAAC and the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dunkerque – Museums of France
OPEN/FRAC, an immersive digital experience at the crossroads of the exhibition and the collective journey
OPEN/FRAC is a project co-created with students from the Gaspard Malo secondary school in Dunkirk.
Conceived as a new way of disseminating the collection, OPEN/FRAC is a digital project based on digitized works from the Frac Grand Large collection, using a photogrammetry process. Photogrammetry consists in determining the shapes and dimensions of an object in space from several photographic shots.
OPEN/FRAC is an immersive experience at the crossroads of an exhibition and a collective journey, allowing visitors to discover a rich selection of works throughout Hall AP2.
This selection is the result of a collaboration with the students of a 3rd grade class from the Gaspard Malo secondary school in Dunkirk. After discovering the Frac and its reserves, each student was invited to choose from a selection of works and to record his or her voice.
Treasures of the collection
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Société Volatile -
Hans HAACKE, -
Agnes DENES, -
Vue de l’exposition « Horizon(s) », 2022-2023, Frac Grand Large, Dunkerque © Christine Deknuydt. Collection Frac Grand Large — Hauts-de-France. Photo : Aurélien Mole -
Marlène Huissoud, The Chair, 2019 © Marlène Huissoud. Adagp, Paris, 2023. Collection Frac Grand Large — Hauts-de-France
Outside the walls: “Play for Today”, a playful and artistic yard project
Until February 29, 2024
Porte d’eau School Group, Dunkirk
The work “Play for Today” by Céline Condorelli, acquired by the Frac Grand Large in 2021, is currently installed in the playground of the Porte d’eau school group in Dunkirk. The artist and designer Céline Condorelli combines her artistic production with a research practice, developing for several years a reflection on the notion of support. She is particularly interested in the structures occupying public spaces, those that allow the integration of culture in everyday life, those that support works or the bodies of those who come to visit them.
The work superimposes different markings of sports fields, specifying for each discipline, identifiable by its official color code, the date on which women had access to it. This small-scale installation can be appropriated in a variety of ways and become both a support for the exhibition of other artists’ works and a meeting place to agree on new rules of the game. Through the history of women in sport, Céline Condorelli’s installation questions more broadly the way in which society could promote gender equality.
