Le Consortium

Genesis

Contemporary art center

The objectives of Le Consortium are the production and exhibition of contemporary works, the enrichment of the public heritage in this area, the promotion, diffusion and training to art and today's thinking. Le Consortium is also in a process of reflection and experimentation in cultural engineering and administration of artistic activities related to performing arts. Le Consortium finds its origin in the mid-70‘s alternative structures, installed in the heart of the cities, and designed as power balances and independent places. Le Consortium’s first actions have been realized with the most protester artists regarding to the language or the way to make art, as Buren, Mosset, Toroni, Rutault, Boltanski, Messager, Le Gac, Baldessari, Luthi… The Contemporary Art Center organizes 8 solo or group exhibitions of international artists each year. It hosted the works of Chris Burden, Rémy Zaugg, Yayoi Kusama, but also the first exhibition in France and even in Europe of today recognized artists as Jorge Pardo, Maurizio Cattelan, Sylvie Fleury, Mark Leckey, Rachel Harrison, Charline von Heyl…

Bedac / Office of Study & Diffusion of Contemporary Art

The Bedac manages the organization of various extramural exhibitions, among which : Pierre Huyghe at the French Pavilion of the Venice Biennale in 2001, the Biennale of Contemporary Art in Lyon in 2003, «Flower Power» in Lille as European Capital of Culture in 2004, the Biennale of Contemporary Art in Valencia in 2005, «Elastic Taboos» at the Kunsthalle in Vienna in 2007, the Anyang Public Art Project in South Korea, the group exhibition «The Alliance» in Beijing and Seoul in 2008, but also Olivier Mosset in Beijing, Yayoi Kusama in Munich (Haus der Kunst), Brussels (Wiels), Paris (Parc de la Villette), Sydney (MCA)...

Department Art & Society

Since 1991, Le Consortium is the mediator of the Fondation de France for the New Patrons programme (Nouveaux Commanditaires) in Bourgogne. It consists in the opportunity for individuals, groups, companies, to commission a contemporary artwork in an approach of proximity. Thanks to the investment of the foundation along with other sponsors or partners, and to the mediator, this original initiative places the creation within contexts of local development and social linkage. Almost 50 commissions have already been completed successfully, from isolated works intended to join museums, to larger sets up in Bourgogne (University for instance), from paintings (Yan Pei Ming) to public lighting (Christian Boltanski), but also buildings (Patrick Berger) among which the center of interpretation of the Canal de Bourgogne in Pouilly-en-Auxois (Shigeru Ban).

Department Nouvelles Scènes / New Scenes

This department is related to the production and diffusion of new musics. Le Consortium attaches importance to make arts meeting each others, by initiating a constant relationship with the contemporary dance, the research theater or contemporary music. A part of the spaces of Le Consortium, suitable to limited audience shows, hosted for many years a lot of choreographers, directors, performers and radical musicians (Olivia Grandville, Odile Duboc, Boris Charmatz, Philippe Découflé, Jérôme Bel, Alain Buffard, Julie Nioche for dance ; Raimund Hoghe, Stanislas Nordey, Valère Novarina, Forced Entertainment, Jean-Charles Masséra, Kasper Toeplitz, Pierre Henry, Dominique A and Françoise Breut, Bob Moog, Balanescu Quartet, David Shea, Yann Tiersen, Les Little Rabbits…).

Office of Graphics

The Office of Graphics designs and edits catalogs, posters and other materials for cultural institutions.

Team

The Collection

The collection contains more than 250 works of international artists - mostly acquired at the beginning of their careers - which have been the subject of an exhibition at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris in 1998 and which are regularly loaned to many institutions. The collection allows a constant rotation in our exhibition spaces, creating a real educational tool in conjunction with the temporary shows.

Selected recent shows

New Patrons programme

The Art & Society department is running a programme of public commissions, mainly dealing with the rural area and its historical and cultural heritage. Since 1991, Le Consortium has been mediator of the Fondation de France within the framework of the Nouveaux Commanditaires activities in Bourgogne, which give individuals, organizations, and public corporations the opportunity to commission a contemporary artwork. One of the goals of the project is to help local development through tourism. The Art & Society department works in collaboration with the European LEADER programme for rural and cultural development.

Public Commissions

Le Consortium, thanks to its long experience in the domain of contemporary art and to the relationship it built with the most famous artists over the years, is particularly qualified to lead public art projects : from isolated public artworks, in rural or urban areas, to big sets of works acting together in coherence, including projects designed in accordance with the social and cultural context of the territory in which they are implanted. Here below are a few examples of the public commissions recently carried out by Le Consortium.

Lille (France)

FLOWER POWER » / LILLE 2004, European Capital of Culture

Within the framework of this big-scale show, occupying several places in Lille as museums and cultural centers, Le Consortium conceived a public art project in collaboration with the internationally recognized Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama : Les Tulipes de Shangri-La. Between the train station Lille Europe and the city center, the work takes place in a wide empty place, as a 7,50-meter-high bouquet of colored and wild flowers, emerging among the buildings. Visible from a raised walkway, it is also directly reachable on the esplanade, such as natural flowers that belong to nobody, and anybody. This is Kusama’s first monumental sculpture out of Japan.

Anyang (South Korea)

« ANYANG PUBLIC ART PROJECT »

Anyang Public Art Project is an exhibition of public commissions and an art festival held in Anyang, a city located at 25 km from Seoul. The objective of this project is to stimulate curiosity, awake the creative spirit of people whose city will be transformed. As a true outdoor laboratory, this project makes temporary and permanent works meet each others. Fifty monumental works of artists from different nationalities are presented in Anyang City : John Armleder, Angela Bulloch, Daniel Buren, Marc Camille Chaimovicz, Eunji Cho, Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset, Rachel Feinstein Sylvie Fleury, Gloria Friedmann, Liam Gillick, Gimhongsok, Dan Graham, Yayoi Kusama, Bertrand Lavier, Olivier Mosset, Mai-Thu Perret, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Gary Webb, Yan Pei Ming...

Doha (Qatar)

« MSHEIREB DOWNTOWN DOHA PROJECT »

Le Consortium acted as an art consultant for the MDD Project, which consists in the re-qualification of a whole district in Doha, capital of Qatar. About 20 outdoor artworks will be installed in the city, punctuating the streets or enhancing the surrounds of museums, schools, mosques... Plus, additional 2- or 3-dimensional works (paintings, photographs, sculptures, furniture...) will be installed in the lobbies of buildings, as much in professional and commercial areas as in the residential zones. Deeply linked to the heritage and the culture of Qatar and its people, such a public collection will gather pieces from local and emerging artists, along with works of internationally recognized ones.

Gwangju (South Korea)

« ASIA CULTURE CENTER »

Since 2014, Le Consortium takes part into the development of the Asian Culture Center in Gwangju (South Korea), managing the space design, the public art and other related projects like the opening of a culture store.

Building museums, in & out

At the beginning of its activity, Le Consortium was set up in a 30 m2 space, at the first floor of an alternative library in Dijon. The structure early moves to a « gallery-apartment » and in 1982 finally occupies an old store of 600 m2 in the city center. In parallel in 1991, a old factory of 4000 m2 located in the inner suburbs has been included in the spaces of Le Consortium. In 2008, the art center arranges a shop, at the entrance of the exhibition space, for the sale of books and multiples. In 2009, the Consortium opens an office in Hoxton Street, London, in the continuation of its willing to promote and extend its approach of art and the society. Two years later, in 2011, the famous Japanese architect Shigeru Ban conceived the new building of Le Consortium, in accordance with the consideration of what an art center is in its founders’ minds.

As an example, conceptually and architecturally, Le Consortium displays our capacity to invent new forms of spaces and places, and to supervise the construction a museum from alpha to omega, from the building to the programming, including the commercial and promotional matters.

Programming

The next fundamental step of building a museum consists in the programming. Each art center requires a specific agenda, including the permanent hanging of a collection, temporary exhibitions, events or shows, other arts performances, etc. in accordance with its conceptual and artistic definition.

Thematics

Les Presses du Réel

In addition to documenting, publishing enables a deepening of the exhibition activities of the Consortium. Les Presses du Réel limited company was set up in 1992, in order to make the publishing business financially independent from the Consortium. Its publications include series about today’s most relevant contemporary art, as well as the main historical and literary texts from or about the 20th century’s avant-gardes : Monographs (Lily van der Stokker, Yayoi Kusama, Lee Bull, Annette Messager, etc. ), exhibitions catalogues, artists’ writings, previously unpublished documents, classical texts never reprinted, and so forth. The series ‘L’Ecart Absolu’, ‘Document sur l’Art’, ‘Otto Muehl’s’ and ‘Hans Hartung’s', the publications Permanent Food and Charley, define an editorial policy which gives Les Presses du Réel a singular position in the landscape of French and international publishing. To strengthen its independency, Les Presses du Réel has also set up its own Distribution Service, which is used more and more by independent publishers such as the Contemporary Art Center of Geneva, The Fine Arts Museum of Nantes, JRP/Ringier Editions in Zurich...

Anna Sanders Films

Le Consortium is one of the main shareholders in the production company ANNA SANDERS FILMS, which was created by the artists Pierre Huyghe, Philippe Parreno, Charles de Meaux and Dominique Gonzalez-Foester. Their aim is to produce their own films as well as to host other international projects. In the last seven years, several short films and features (Skimkent Hotel, Charles de Meaux’s Le Pont de Trieur, Dominique Gonzalez-Foester’s Riyo and Central Plage...), which were shown in cinemas and broadcast on television, have been produced. Some of them have been brought out on DVD in the Anna Sanders Films MK2 collection. During the 2004 Cannes Film Festival, Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Tropical Malady obtained the Prix du Jury, and in 2002 Blissfully Yours by the same director obtained the award Un Certain regard.

Reconnaissance internationale

Le Consortium : key figures

Institutional partners

See also