The Institut d’art contemporain (IAC)

The Institut d’art contemporain is a non-profit-making association which is part of a network of contemporary art centres and regional funds for contemporary art (FRAC) across France under the responsibility of the Delegation for the Plastic Arts (DAP) at the Ministry of Culture. The IAC is funded by the Direction régionale des affaires culturelles for the Rhône-Alpes region, the Rhône-Alpes regional council, and the municipality of Villeurbanne.

The IAC was founded in 1997 as a result of the amalgamation of the Nouveau Musée art centre, founded in 1978, and the FRAC Rhône-Alpes, founded in 1982. The IAC was the first institution of its kind in France to have a dual role, organising temporary exhibitions in its premises in Villeurbanne and building up the IAC – FRAC Rhône-Alpes Collection to lend to its partners throughout the Rhône-Alpes region. Thanks to this twofold approach, the IAC took on a dynamic role in presenting and debating contemporary art issues and developed a bold acquisition policy, along with an educational strategy planning activities and events to bring the superb collection to the wider public.

The IAC organises two major types of exhibitions in Villeurbanne and throughout the Rhône-Alpes region, with the aim of making contemporary art, from the 1960s to the present, accessible to a wider public.

In Villeurbanne, the IAC’s art centre organises and presents exhibitions featuring a certain number of artworks specially produced for the exhibition, as well as items borrowed from existing private or public collections.

The exhibition programme aims to explore developments in contemporary art from a critical aesthetic perspective open to international issues. The exhibitions feature images and the result of artists’ thinking on the nature of creation in the plastic arts, in all its forms and in a broad range of media.

The centre has hosted some one hundred exhibitions in its premises – 1,200 m² when the partitions are folded back – since it opened in 1978. Many of these have then transferred to art centres elsewhere in France or abroad.

The IAC produces solo exhibitions which aim to provide a definitive presentation of the unique creative practice of the artist in question, in the form of:

The IAC organises group exhibitions featuring the work of younger artists whose artistic practice has much to say about broader trends in society – shows including Aperto, Identité, Côté Sud, Histoires contemporaines, and Communauté I et II – or who bring together a variety of artistic approaches as a way of exploring major aesthetic or socio-political issues, in shows such as Artistes/Architectes, L’Envers du décor, Et l’art se met au monde, and Architecture radicale.

In parallel with these exhibitions, an exhibition space regularly showcases recent acquisitions or major works from the IAC – FRAC Rhône-Alpes Collection as a way of relating the collection more closely to the themes featured in the exhibitions.

The most recent development is the new partnership inaugurated in 2003 between the IAC and the Lyons Biennial of Contemporary Art. Thanks to this partnership, the IAC now plays a role as one of the hosts of the Biennial.

The IAC – FRAC Rhône-Alpes Collection was founded in 1982 as part of a national policy of cultural decentralisation which prompted the creation of a FRAC, or regional fund for contemporary art, in each region. The collection is open to the full range of forms of artistic expression since the 1960s, including painting, drawing, sculpture, installations, photography, video, and so on. It currently holds 1,314 works acquired between 1983 and 2005, representing 530 artists, half of whom are French.

In the Rhône-Alpes region, the IAC’s role as a FRAC involves co-ordinating the loan of works from the IAC – FRAC Rhône-Alpes Collection throughout the region to cultural institutions including museums, media centres, libraries, non-profit-making galleries, theatres, and cultural centres, educational establishments such as schools and universities, and local authorities who wish to organise temporary exhibitions in specific locations, such as industrial wasteland or unused buildings.

In partnership with the regional council, the IAC – FRAC Rhône-Alpes Collection aims to contribute to the creation of a network of exhibition spaces for contemporary art, working with the relevant authorities at a local and regional level and with various partners at grass-roots level. The IAC – FRAC Rhône-Alpes Collection aims to focus its attention on the areas of the region least well provided for and is part of an ongoing government commitment in this field.

Over the years, the IAC’s directors and specialist committees have built up an extraordinary collection of artworks that reflect the broad variety of readings of contemporary artistic practice over the last forty years. Several movements can be traced back through the collection, such as the development of sculpture towards installations, the evolution of photography from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day, the place of figurative versus abstract art, the role of analytic painting and narrative figuration, and so on. The place of the image itself is called into question by an increasing number of works showing images in movement. Some aspects of the collection deserve particular emphasis, such as the importance accorded to artists whose aesthetic practice is predicated on the notion of difference or whose aesthetic reflects a variant reading of modernity, from Lygia Pape to Gina Pane, as well as artists associated with movements of emancipation, such as Martha Rosler, Barbara Kruger, Jenny Holzer, and Orlan, among others. These artists can also be read in the context of another major category in the collection – the relationship between art and reality and society. Among the artists in the collection whose work addresses this issue are Shirin Neshat, Annette Messager, Hans Haacke, and Franck Scurti.

The IAC’s acquisitions policy has changed in emphasis over the years. Since 1997 the focus has been on acquiring works with a view to complementing the existing collections and supporting the new generation of up-and-coming young European artists by purchasing groups of works by a single artist, particularly by artists living in the Rhône-Alpes region or who specialise in video. The IAC’s educational mission means that the collection also aims to build up a library of documents about individual artists’ aesthetic approaches and work practices.

The IAC information centre and archive specialises in contemporary art from the 1960s to the present day. Part historical record, part research resource, it is an indispensable tool in the IAC’s mission to bring contemporary art to a wider public and is a major resource centre for such activities and events. It is one of the biggest collections of its kind in France, holding over 20,000 documents, including specialist art magazines, exhibition catalogues, books – including artists’ books – and files on individual artists.

The archive holds items such as artists’ projects, invitations to exhibitions, posters, and sound and film recordings. This material has featured in exhibitions, CD-Roms, and on the IAC website. The information centre is open to all, from students and schoolchildren working on projects to teachers and art professionals.