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Jean-François Charnier (born 1969) is a French general heritage and art curator (conservateur général du patrimoine).

He has over 25 years of experience of creating and coordinating cultural projects, both in museums and research institutions. As Scientific Director of Agence France-Muséums (2008-2018), he was responsible for the launch of a major new international museum on the world stage: the Louvre Abu Dhabi.

Education

Jean-François Charnier was born in Italy and completed his early education in Italy and Belgium. He graduated in Art History and Archaeology from the École du Louvre, then in anthropology from Université Paris X-Nanterre, before qualifying as a state curator from the National Heritage Institute (INP).

Career

His first position (1996-2000) was as curator for archaeology and heritage (coordinating preventive archaeology and developing research programs in the field of prehistory) of the Pays de la Loire region in Western France. He coordinated and participated in several regional projects requiring challenging restoration missions and the promotion of local heritage.

He then became director of the Agriculture and Environment department of the new Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilisations (MUCEM) in Marseille (2000-2006). He co-edited the museum mission statement and programs, and led research projects and acquisitions on pre-industrial ways of life and traditional technologies in the Mediterranean and Middle East. He also lectured on European anthropology at the Ecole du Louvre, coordinated several research projects in France and the Mediterranean on food practices and production, and curated numerous exhibitions. He was also part of the French Foreign Ministry archaeological missions in Sub Saharan Africa (Nigeria).

From 2006 to 2008 he was appointed advisor to the French National Heritage Director and proposed and implemented the national network of Conservation and Study Centres (CCE) for museums and archaeology. This network become important on a national level and later successfully expanded across Europe.

In 2008 he joined Agence France-Muséums to coordinate the expertise of French national museums including the Louvre, Pompidou Centre, Musée d’Orsay etc. for the creation of the Louvre Abu Dhabi. He was appointed Scientific Director of Agence France-Muséums in 2013. Leading a team including curators and project managers, he created the concept and contents of the museum and led the teams responsible for the museography, art acquisitions, contemporary art commissions, exhibition programming, auditorium events, interpretation and publications of the Louvre Abu Dhabi in preparation for its inauguration in November 2017. In 2019 the major reference work Louvre Abu Dhabi A World Vision of Art was published under his editorship, including texts by sixty international thinkers.

In August 2018, he joined the French Agency for the Development of AlUla as Scientific Director in charge of the Culture and Heritage expert division, initiating the development of an ambitious archaeological research program which has seen AlUla become the biggest archaeological centre in the Middle East. AFALULA is also working alongside the Royal Commission for AlUla on a range of museum projects and contemporary art initiatives. Jean-François Charnier is co-curating the touring exhibition AlUla Wonder of Arabia, which will travel to several museums around the world after its first edition at the Institute of the Arab World in Paris in October 2019.

Jean-François Charnier has authored several important publications in the fields of archaeology, anthropology, and museum practice. He has participated in international conferences and has been a regular lecturer at the Ecole du Louvre and the Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi. He was awarded Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in 2017.