Florence Derieux is Director of the Frac Champagne-Ardenne in Reims, France.
During this second part of our conversation, Derieux talks about this “scary but very fascinating moment in history. Everything is completely changing. Even in the art world, no one seems to understand what is happening. There was an article about Mr. Paul Schimmel (former chief curator of the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, Ed.), who is going to work for a new gallery that Hauser & Wirth will open in Los Angeles. Schimmel is one of the most admired curators. The fact that he is leaving the Museum means that the public institutions are not any longer able to keep people of such a quality within the institution itself. But this could also be seen as something new and interesting in terms of mutation. Maybe the public institutions are no longer a place where we can work independently and productively and without the independence that is required to produce high quality research.”
Derieux talks also about the institution she directs, the FRAC Champagne-Ardenne and the way they work and the relation they maintain with the Champagne-Ardenne region which has always been very active in terms of culture and politics. She mentions Grand Jeu, the group of poet working in Reims in the late 20s early 30s and whose research was very close to the Surrealists; the intellectual Roger Caillois who will be shown at the upcoming Venice Biennale. Most of the protagonists of the French revolution were also acting is Reims and in the Champagne-Ardenne region, such as Louise Michel and Georges Jacques Danton.
The FRAC Champagne Ardenne will remain closed for renovation for about 3 years. “Nobody wanted to pay for a temporary space so we are stopping the exhibitions. We are now developing new ways of working with the artists. In a way this is also exiting. At the moment, for example, we are developing projects with other institutions, and this is also another way of working. It is a big challenge for all of us. We are now organizing an exhibition with Agnes Denis at Firstsite in Colchester (UK). I am co-curating this exhibition with Michelle Cotton, Senior Curator, at Firstsite. We are also working with Krist Gruijthuijsen, director of the Kunstverein in Graz, on Lisa Oppenheim’s exhibition her first monograph which is planned for February 2014. We have also working on a project with Goshka Makuga whose work will be shown at the Madre Museum in Naples Directed by Andrea Viliani.”
Interview by Tiziana Casapietra