Spend two and a half minimum wages to be alone in a workshop or type in a residence set up by passionate promoters at the gates of Paris? Rent prices and collective desires give rise to exciting initiatives of artist campus the other side of the ring-road. Guided tour in the factory of greater Paris.
What is a crowd of ultra stylish fashionistas typical of fashion week coming to do in front of an industrial building in Aubervilliers on a freezing Friday evening at the end of January? They are in a hurry to enter the Zadig & Voltaire Fall Winter 23-24 fashion show organized at Poush, the XXL artist residency located in the 20,000 m2 of an old perfume factory. one more shot Artketing to win a credibilty underground with less effort? Nothing is less sure. Cleverly thought out, collaborations with fashion brands might well help to shine an emerging contemporary scene.
This huge space chosen for the Zadig & Voltaire fashion show is an industrial wasteland transformed by the Manifesto agency into an artists’ residence called Poush. Established since March 2022, 250 emerging or more established artists have found a place to create, produce and be supported during a pivotal period in their career. At the helm of Poush, a team of big arms in art and culture invent models of collaboration and visibility for them. Moreover, an alliance with the prestigious neighbor 19M was quickly made. Designed by Chanel, 19M is a building also erected at Porte d’Aubervilliers, 5 minutes from Poush, which brings together the crafts acquired by the brand (the embroiderer Lesage, the hatter Maison Michel, among others, etc.) and a gallery of exhibition to show their know-how. 19M’s invitation to Poush artists to create and exhibit for two months in its gallery serves the interests of both parties. Breath of contemporary creation in Chanel’s heritage professions for increased exposure and recognition of artists. It matches. The result: a rich and cutting-edge program orchestrated by Poush’s artistic director, Yvannoé Kruger, who offers several exhibitions, workshops and performances each month.
NEW SCHOOL
Same passion for supporting artists at the start of their career, Artagon is also located in a place in transition in the Paris suburbs. A former college, made available by the city of Pantin, 4500 m2 where the classrooms have become artists’ studios, sound and video studios, shared offices, technical workshops… 50 artists, selected by a call for project, took up residence for 18 months in this cocoon in order to create, invent and exchange under the protection of a team of pros from the art world. At the initiative of Artagon, we find the duo Anna Labouze and Keimis Henni, who have already created a similar place in Marseille in 2021 and have their heads full of projects.
The October open days at Artagon Pantin made it possible to show the artists’ studios, but above all to feel this vibe quite special where the curious of the district mingle, the children who appropriate the common spaces, the visitors who lend themselves to the game of the works work in progress and the artists who explain their work simply, without borrowing all the elitist term of contemporary art. Among them, Ismail Alaoui Fdili has a multimedia practice between sculpture, photography, performance and films. He presents his satirical project “ International University of Car Care » and makes us react on these precarious professions and the value of work. We enter perplexed but we come out enthusiastic by the ultra positive energy shared between the artists and the public.
A good wind is blowing on the suburbs, a new generation of the contemporary scene is preparing for it. We begin to dream of a new School of Paris* in germ in the fallow lands of Aubervilliers and Pantin. Artists to follow…
*Expression designating foreign and French artists who chose Paris as a place of life and creation in the first half of the 20th centuryth century. Among the best known, Chagall, Soutine, Laurencin or Léger then gathered around Montparnasse, the nerve center of which was La Ruche, a city of artists still active today.
Par Eve Cohen
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