Foreword – Nathalie Ergino
More than a celebration of the past thirty years,
Ambition d'art constitutes an assessment and
report, an active report, which we could describe as “retro-perspective.”
And it is, in fact, because the Institut d'art contemporain's genesis is as atypical as the position
that I presently hold. To take over from a founder such as Jean Louis Maubant, this since 2006,
and to participate as a true associate in the realization of his own assessment represents, to my
way of thinking, an exceptional moment in the history of contemporary art institutions in France.
Here it is more a question of a heritage in a state of transfer than a simple succession, in the
breaking away from or continuity of that heritage.
Thus, being a dedicated observer of the Institute for many years, I was able to measure and
appreciate what distinguishes it, in comparison with other pioneering organizations like the
Capc
in Bordeaux, or the
Consortium in Dijon, but also with those that followed, such as the CCC in
Tours, or
Le
Magasin in Grenoble.
If art, the artist, were always very much the center of the Institute's initial operation, they were so
through the active relationship with the other, with society. And it is precisely with the assistance
of “private, voluntary, and very committed people” that Jean Louis Maubant would develop an
exacting and independent adventure over these past thirty years.
Mixing private and public contributions, the Nouveau Musée-Institut implement is first and
foremost at the service of creativity and research, with the objective of accompanying this “manartist”
and his “capacity for lucidity about himself and society, his desire to reach beyond the
ordinary, his foresight, critical ability, his desire to speak to the other through emotion as well as
rational discourse.” This is why Jean Louis Maubant gives preference to personal exhibitions,
which allow him to better “enter into a work, into an always complex thought.” It is with this same
concern to delve deeper and educate that, around the artist, he introduced a range of
educational tools: documents, archives, publications, encounters, exchanges. And it is in the
quest for the “Institute's resistance to the spectacle of art” that he invited certain artists back
again at key moments during their careers, so as to affirm the necessity of notions of time, study,
and commitment in art, without which no critical stance is possible.
Today, what is the role and relevance of a contemporary art institute when faced with current
creation and the way it works?
It was by following a path that led me successively to direct a FRAC (Fonds regional d'art
contemporain) in Champagne-Ardenne, and then a Museum of Contemporary Art in Marseilles,
that I was led to consider the principles that have guided this organization as not only valid, but
more than ever necessary.
Moreover, the act of passing on this memory is to consider this place as a work platform
indispensable to the development of a future, particularly in a world in the process of radical
transformation firmly planted in its eternal present.
However, “beliefs” have changed, obliging us to link strategies of extreme mobility to all
endeavors searching to deepen experience. For, if artists feel the need to “reexamine,” this stems
less from a desire to achieve an assessment than to obtain a “break” through the exercise of
exhibition as an artistic form in its own right. And if the public seeks an explanation for things, this
reaches beyond a consumerist attitude. It is so as to integrate into a group as a potential player…
The increasing amount of elements and their globalization (artists, museums, collectors…)
imposes an even greater seriousness and vigilance if we wish to preserve creation's central and
pivotal position. How do we maintain an artistic course when faced with art market excesses and
the hold of popularity ratings over museums? Yet this multiplying doesn't merely generate
emptiness. For, although this “overfull” imparts dizziness, it also gives rise to excitement, curiosity,
hope, and discovery.
How do we, without remaining in a fallback position, contribute to our time while maintaining high
standards and mobility of mind? Although art becomes an industry, this doesn't necessarily
deprive art of its qualities insofar as artists remain the masters of the game – and it is this
exercise that has now become an ongoing challenge. Too bad, then, for the artists who abandon the quest for this freedom. After all, film, music, and literature, and this for a long time now, are
the outcomes of approaches to various aims intended for diverse publics.
This is why we can enjoy dreaming that organizations of creation and diffusion such as the
Institut d'art contemporain will accompany artists as far as possible in preserving their freedom to
be and to create – without which a critical or subversive dimension of the artwork, the impact of
the unexpected, and singularity, would not be possible.
At once looking into the future and archiving the past, experimental and theoretical, the Institut
d'art contemporain could be this “new laboratory of time” that Jean-Louis Froment evokes in his
book – in short, an
Institute.
