Marie Griffay, director of the FRAC Champagne-Ardenne (Rheims, France) has a master’s degree in contemporary art history research and a professional master’s in curatorial practices (Paris IV – Sorbonne). After a period at the Institut d’art contemporain and then at the Musée du Louvre, she became curatorial assistant at the Centre Pompidou for the Bertrand Lavier exhibition. In 2013, she was among the winners of the “Young Curators Season – Nouvelle Vague” and organized an exhibition of the Catalan artist Martí Anson at the Palais de Tokyo. She them joined the Saint-Etienne Métropole Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art as head of the exhibitions and publications department and curator of “young artists” exhibitions. In 2016-17, she coordinated the 1% art budget for the new Centrale Supélec campus, designed by the OMA agency.
For the FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, she is devising a cultural program focused on games: “Over and above the distraction and forgetfulness provided by games, they set up rules, freely agreed upon by their participants which, through analogy with ordinary life, act like an expression of living together.” Her program, called “The Spirit of Play, between Rules and Turbulence”, will be opening early in 2018 with the exhibitions “Plein Jeu #1” and “Collection + Emmanuelle Lainé”.
ABOUT FRAC CHAMPAGNE-ARDENNE (REGIONAL FUNDS FOR CONTEMPORARY ART)
Created in 1984, the FRAC Champagne-Ardenne / Regional Funds for Contemporary Art is active in the support and creation of contemporary art. Like the other FRACs in each of the French regions, it is mandated to create and promote a collection of contemporary works of art, to develop and mount exhibitions of contemporary artists, to publish, and to organize educational activities and events in order to sensitize the public at large about contemporary art.
Each year at the Ancien Collège des Jésuites in Reims, the FRAC Champagne-Ardenne presents solo or collective exhibitions, as well as exhibits of totally new works by contemporary artists who have come especially to work in its spaces. Since its creation, the FRAC has distinguished itself through the experimental nature of its program and through the close ties it has been able to create and nurture with the artists of international renown who have come to create in the region.
The collections of the Frac Champagne-Ardenne are composed of more than 800 works reflecting the extraordinary diversity of contemporary practices.
(Her visit in planned in contact with the embassy of The Netherlands in Paris).