Un peu dhistoire et de peinture

The Institut d'Art Contemporain – FRAC Rhône-Alpes has a collection of some 1,350 works, a large number of which, at any one time, are on loan to museums in France and abroad, notably paintings belonging to the French narrative figuration movement of the 1960s, which is enjoying a return to popularity.

Three paintings by Gerhard Richter are currently deposited to the Grenoble and Saint-Etienne Museums, and other sets of works have been presented in the Rhône-Alpes region (most recently in Privas), with the aim of bringing contemporary creativity to a wider public.

But the collection also contains works by artists who, while standing somewhat apart from the higher-profile trends, have established their reputations over time. In sculpture, for example, one might mention Jean Amado, Maxime Descombin and Magdalena Abakanowicz; and in painting and drawing, Dado, Jean Rustin and Armand Avril.

The art world is characterized by a series of different phases: struggle-in-obscurity, emergence, the knife-edge, success, stalemate, or perhaps more-or-less controllable madness, discreet indifference or parallel networks, oblivion (pure and simple) or affectionate re-examination. And so we have now decided to put the diversity of our reserves before our visitors.

This very "painterly" exhibition also demonstrates that the FRACs have never been elitist niches of an "official" art in which painting is undervalued; quite the contrary. The Rhône-Alpes collection also contains works by a large number of artists who come from, or work in, the region itself, and the technical committee is responsive to local initiatives.

The Institut d'Art Contemporain – FRAC Rhône-Alpes is putting on this summer show as an "alternative museum", with a combination of neglected and recognized works from the 1950s up to the present day. It will be a voyage of re-discovery, with curiosity sweeping away all trace of nostalgia.

Jean Louis Maubant, Exhibition Commissioner Pressetext

Un peu d'histoire et de peinture?
Kurator: Jean Louis Maubant

mit Jean-Michel Alberola, Jean Amado, Armand Avril, Robert Combas, Erró , Gerard Fromanger, Patrice Giorda, Peter Klasen, Jacques Monory, Jean Raine, Gerhard Richter, Georges Rousse, Jean Rustin, Daniel Tillier, Carmelo Zagari, u.a.