Large Opens on Île Seguin With a Focus on French Art in All Its Forms
Observer ·
Backed by developer and collector Laurent Dumas and led by former La Maison Rouge director Paula Aisemberg, the new center occupies a striking RCR Arquitectes building on a former Renault factory site. Its debut exhibition, curated by Cecilia Alemani, traces humanity’s bond with the machine.
In the expanding Parisian art ecosystem, a new art center has opened in time for Art Basel Paris . Located just beyond the City of Light, Large welcomed its first visitors on October 17, anchoring a new cultural district on Île Seguin in Greater Paris and becoming a fresh point of reference for French contemporary artists. Housed in a landmark building designed by RCR Arquitectes (winners of the 2017 Pritzker Prize) and CALQ, Large has links to Groupe Emerige and its CEO and founder, French collector Laurent Dumas , though when we met in advance of the opening, director Paula Aisemberg was quick to clarify that Large is a French nonprofit association, not a corporate foundation. “We are an art center with a hybrid model,” she told Observer. “We are not simply an extension of Groupe Emerige. We are independent of it while receiving its support.”
An art historian and curator, Aisemberg is director of artistic projects at Emerige after having run La Maison Rouge, the Parisian contemporary art foundation, for 17 years. She is also president of the Trampoline organization, vice president of the Jeu de Paume and a board member of POUSH and the Fonds de dotation Christian Boltanski .
Large’s primary mission is to support and promote French art in all its diversity, from emerging practices to major figures of the 20th Century. That focus gives the center a distinct identity within a Parisian art scene already rich in museums and foundations, Aisemberg said. Nationality and passports are beside the point; the aim is to support the broader French art scene, including artists who have chosen to live in France even if they were not born there. “The French art scene is very cosmopolitan. Artists from all over the world live here, and this is the scene we want to present to the public.”
The art center’s program is structured around two annual seasons—from October to February and from April to September—with one to three exhibitions on view at any time. For the opening season, Large is devoting its entire 2,500-square-meter exhibition space to “Imaginary Engine: From Masterpieces of the Collection Renault to Artists of Today.” Curated by Cecilia Alemani and organized in collaboration with the Fonds Renault pour l’Art et la Culture, the show explores the relationship between humans and machines, particularly cars, a theme rooted in the history of a site once occupied by Renault factories. Structured in five chapters—”The Factory of My Thoughts,” “Social Bodies,” “Motor Forces,” “Objects of Desire” and “The Human Machine”—the exhibition examines both the industrial utopias of the 20th Century and the technological and social transformations that have revolutionized contemporary life, which emerging technologies such as A.I. continue to reshape.
Historic works from the carmaker’s collection by artists such as Vasarely, Dubuffet, Tinguely and Doisneau appear alongside contemporary pieces. Funding the production of new work is central to Large’s mission: 17 pieces in the opening exhibition were commissioned from artists including Théo Mercier , Sara Sadik , Bianca Bondi , Clément Cogitore , Bertrand Lavier , Mohamed El Khatib , Oliver Beer , Bertille Bak , Thu Van Tran and Giulia Andreani .
“Large will regularly produce new works with artists,” Aisemberg said. “We have this special place and a main gallery of 1,000 square meters, with a height of 14 meters. We realized we would need to support artists in producing new pieces for the exhibitions we want to organize with them.”
The center has no on-site residencies, laboratories or production workshops. Instead, it relies on collaborations in Paris and elsewhere in France through which invited artists can undertake residencies or access specialized workshops when a project calls for it. “One interesting thing about being in Paris, and in France more broadly, is that we can develop partnerships,” Aisemberg said. “We also want to create partnerships with other institutions and imagine exhibitions,” she added, outlining a program that will pair monographic shows with thematic exhibitions addressing the pressing social questions of our time.
Beyond the main gallery, the building has two 500-square-meter galleries on the fifth and sixth floors and a 500-square-meter entrance agora housing the ticket desk and bookshop. Aisemberg expects installations and artworks to appear in the agora as well, so that visitors who wander in by chance can engage with art without buying a ticket.
Accessibility is another pillar of the institution’s mission. While the main exhibitions are ticketed, Large offers free entry to a wide range of groups, including all visitors under 25. With 40 percent of its spaces open free of charge, the center extends a broader invitation to experience contemporary creation and establishes itself as a place for everyday life and gathering. “We have a space for children, a coffee shop in the middle of the building, a bookshop and a boutique. We want to welcome many different kinds of visitors and make them feel comfortable in this distinctive building, so that after their first exhibition they want to come back,” Aisemberg said.
Large is part of La Pointe des Arts, a 53,000-square-meter mixed-use development with a strong emphasis on arts and culture, developed by Groupe Emerige with Ardian Real Estate (the majority investor) and AOG. According to Aisemberg, it is also a postindustrial urban regeneration project, carried out in collaboration with local authorities and institutions: “We’re transforming an island that was a factory for nearly a century into a cultural place.”
Located in western Greater Paris, La Pointe des Arts is reachable from the city by metro, tram, bus and bicycle. (Aisemberg puts the ride from central Paris at around 30 minutes, depending on the starting point.) Alongside Large, the development includes an eight-screen Pathé cinema, a 230-bed hotel and 20,000 square meters of office space, as well as shops and restaurants. “Paris is very rich in institutions dedicated to contemporary art, but there aren’t so many in the west of the city,” Aisemberg said. “We are keen to welcome families, young people and all the residents of the surrounding area, and we’re building partnerships with nearby municipalities. That’s very important to us: reaching the local area and giving its residents access.”