Double Jeu

Since day one at the beginning of the 1990s, the Frac Centre collection has served to question artistic and architectural interdisciplinary techniques, uniting contemporary art and experimental architecture in a single collection. The works by artists in this collection demonstrate a critical vision of architecture, using this discipline in its Utopian spirit as an area for open-minded reflection about social and political space.

The Frac Centre invited twelve artists from its collection to present an architect alongside their work. Acting as curators, the artists expressed their interest in the 1960s, characterised by the latest avant-garde architecture, anti-establishment and radical movements, present in the Frac Centre collection.

The echoes and resonance, divergences and confrontations observed between contemporary artists and these architects from 1960-70 probe the close relationships between art and architecture.

Through this double vision the exhibition highlights measures taken by activists to reclaim the town (Attia/La Pietra, Colomer/Friedman, Froment/Soleri) and modular architectures (Beau/Hafner, Prévieux/ Chanéac), or a delicately and poetically constructed space (Reip/Sottsass Jr.). The artists share the same fascination for the dreamlike capacity of images with the architects (Berdaguer & Péjus / Sottsass Jr., Fauguet & Cousinard/Günschel) and tension between the narrative elements in the space (Beltrame/ Moth/Parent-Architecture-Principe). They also misappropriate the perception of space and time (Garcia/Superstudio, Lamarche/Pettena).

Like a chiasmus these intersections between artists and architects enable a particular rhythm to be created and resemblances or differences to be highlighted. Through this reverse equilibrium here the artists contribute to a renewed understanding of these architectural projects that are reactivated on a critical level in the context of this new exhibition.