User:Monday McLeod/Lafayette Anticipations - Fondation d'entreprise Galeries Lafayette

Established in 2013 by the Galeries Lafayette Group, Lafayette Anticipations – Fondation d’entreprise Galeries Lafayette will open at the beginning of 2018 in a building located 9 rue du Plâtre in the Marais district of Paris. The building is renovated by Rem Koolhaas and his architecture agency, OMA. Cette fondation d'intérêt général a pour ambition de soutenir les artistes et créateurs de notre temps. This public interest foundation aims to support contemporary artists and creators. Open to design and fashion, the Fondation recognizes the singular thought of all artists as well as their ability to participate in social change as well as anticipate it. Guillaume Houzé is President of the Fondation; François Quintin  is its Managing Director.

The Fondation has been in activity since 2013  through the Lafayette Anticipations pre-launch programme.

Missions
Lafayette Anticipations is centred around its production activity. It is the first interdisciplinary centre of its kind in France. The Fondation is a space for experimentation and research; unique tools and work conditions are offered to artists, designers and performers, allowing them to take their work in unprecedented directions.

In addition to exhibitions, different transmission avenues make tangible the creative process to the audience, rendering Lafayette Anticipations a place of production , observation and active sharing. The Fondation is conceived as a “living space", that will host both exhibitions and public programmes open to the public as of 2018.

Lafayette Anticipations also provides support to contemporary creation via the Fonds de dotation Famille Moulin, a general interest endowment fund. Since 2013, the fund also acquires pieces to enhance its collection.

The architectural project
The 9 rue du Plâtre was built in 1891 for the Bazar de l’Hôtel de Ville. It is an industrial building with a detailed façade. It was used previously as a warehouse, a straw hat repair store (a BHV specialty), a school for young girls and recently a prep school for higher education.

The renovation project is carried out by OMA, presided by architect Rem Koolhaas, winner of the Pritzker Architecture Prize and 2014 Venice Biennale curator. The building is located in the historic district of the Marais district in Paris, protected by the Malraux conservation laws.The architectural project respects the historic decree’s urban norms. The U-shaped central part of the building will be filled with an 18 metre glass tower, that will not exceed the height of the current structure. The tower is endowed with motorized platforms, to create 49 different configurations according to exhibition needs. The architectural intervention grants great flexibility to artistic programming often sought after by cultural institutions, all the while respecting the preservation criteria imposed by the Architectes des Bâtiments de France. A production workshop is at the heart of the project and serves as the institution’s pillar. The ground floor will host public events and will serve as a passage linking the rue du Plâtre to the rue Sainte-Croix-de-la-Bretonnerie. The exhibition and workshop spaces, learning room and offices are spread on five floors and have a total surface area of 2500m².

October 2013 - July 2014
In October 2013, the Fondation d’entreprise Galeries Lafayette settled temporarily in the 9 rue du Plâtre building. ROTOR, a Belgian architectural collective, was commissioned to transform the space into an exhibition area.

Thus began the Fondation’s pre-launch programme, called Lafayette Anticipations. In the 9 rue du Plâtre building, Kosovan artist Petrit Halilaj presented his first French exhibit, titled July 14th. Also in the space, Simon Fujiwara prepared his first performance piece, New Pompidou, presented during the Centre Pompidou 's ''Nouveau Festival. ''Emmanuelle Huynh organised an experimental workshop, Emanticipation, with a group of young dancers and artists, namely Volmir Cordeiro, Anne-Lise Le Gac, Anna Gaïotti, Katerina S. Andreou et Richard John Jones. Furthermore, several key figures in the fashion world, such as Irène Silvagni, Michèle Lamy and Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, participated in the Vestoj Storytelling Salon established in partnership with the Vestoj fashion journal.

From October 2013 to July 2014, the Fondation hosted artists in residence such as Will Benedict, Mimosa Echard, Élodie Seguin and Cally Spooner.

From July 3 to 6, 2014 Lafayette Anticipations – Fondation d’entreprise Galeries Lafayette opened its doors to the public, presenting its architectural and artistic project. This event called Venir Voir Venir introduced the space’s innovative initiative in support of artists and designers made accessible to a diverse audience.

Since September 2014
Renovation at 9 rue du Plâtre began in September of 2014. The pre-launch programme continued in a space located 46 rue Sainte-Croix-de-la-Bretonnerie in Paris. The Hub, as the space is called, welcomed numerous artists in residence, including Jerszy Seymour who produced a concert on December 12 at Garage Mu in Paris. On March 7 and 8 2015  the Hub also hosted the Parisian edition of the Editathon Art+Feminism. The marathon has since been held in 2016  and 2017  at the National archives in Paris during international women’s rights day.

The Fondation renewed its partnership with Vestoj to produce The Vestoj Salon On Slowness  performance in Paris in January 2015, as well as a New-York edition of The Vestoj Storytelling Salon presented in March 2015 at  MoMA PS1.

“Mutant Stage”, a choreographic short film series, traced the evolution of the building’s renovation. Initiated by Amélie Couillaud and Dimitri Chamblas, produced by Lafayette Anticipations, these films invite dancers to immerse themselves in the changing space and thus reveal its vital and invisible interstices.

Joining Forces with the Unknown
From October 11 to 23 2016, the Fondation organised Joing Forces with the Unknown, a temporary event held in the former Weber Métaux hardware store located 16 rue Debelleyme in the Marais. The pieces produced for this exhibition are diverse in nature – sculptures, installations, films and performances. All were commissioned by Lafayette Anticipations specifically for the event and reveal the Fondation’s commitment to interdisciplinary production. Indeed, in line with its pluridisciplinary and social missions, Joining Forces with the Unknown gathered 14 international artists from diverse fields in contemporary art, design and fashion, whose pieces reflect the belief that creation is a vector of change, be it political or cultural, tangible or symbolic.

As such, the event was a reflection of the Fondation’s principle mission: providing support to creators seeking new means of production. The Fondation shapes its role around the needs of artists, thinkers and other unique individuals, in search of new forms of expression. The 14 artists are linked by the specific attention granted to production, be it through the practice of, or reference to, manual work (Mimosa Echard, Simon Fujiwara, Lucy McKenzie, Valerie Snobeck), the use of industrial or digital technologies (Camille Blatrix, Tyler Coburn, Oliver Laric, Rayyane Tabet), or through the incorporation of specific know-how in their pieces (Perks And Mini, Slow and Steady Wins the Race, Studio Brynjar & Veronika, Cally Spooner, Anicka Yi).

Anticipations
In parallel to Joining Forces with the Unknown, the Fondation co-published with JRP-Ringier a book titled Anticipations. The book’s content traces the history of the Lafayette Anticipations pre-launch programme carried out in France and abroad. The Fondation commissioned Swiss artist Raphael Hefti to design the book’s cover; its particular production process renders a unique design for each cover. The content is composed of interviews with noteworthy figures and supporters of Lafayette Anticipations, theoretical essays and production notebooks produced by the Fondation’s artists in residence.