Upcoming exhibitions
Chelsea Girl
In partnership with
Nicola L. Chelsea Girl was produced by Frac Bretagne in collaboration with Camden Art Centre, London; Kunsthalle Wien, and Museion – Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Bolzano/Bozen
Chelsea Girl
Nicola L.
A French-born performer and designer who passed away in 2018, Nicola L. moved from the Académie Julian to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where she worked in the studio of painter Jean Souverbie. She discovered New York in 1966, on the invitation of the experimental theater La MaMa, and settled there permanently in the late 1970s. Her conceptual work is based on two approaches that open up multiple possibilities: making bodies and making bodies. “Faire corps”, i.e. bringing bodies together in the same skin, to inhabit space together, more organically, from the inside of a second skin. Le Manteau rouge, une même peau pour tout le monde (1969) is a huge stretcherless canvas with 11 empty pockets adapted to the dimensions of 11 human bodies. The coat was designed for a performance to accompany Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso at the Isle of Wight pop music festival. Since 2002, the artist has been touring the world with his “art-skins” (Cuba, Paris, Los Angeles, the Great Wall of China, and as far afield as the European Parliament in Brussels), inviting bodies to share in his performances “the odyssey of the flesh”, as Michel Onfray puts it.
Already part of the Frac Bretagne collection with the work Tapis gris pour cinq personnes, 1975, this wide-ranging exhibition, conceived in partnership and touring with the Camden Art Center in London (UK), the Kunsthalle in Vienna (Austria) and the Museion in Bolzano (Italy), will trace the artist’s fantastic career and combine it with works by other figures from the artistic scenes she has traversed.
Curated by Géraldine Gourbe
Image: Nicola L. in Penetrable at the Chelsea Hotel, New York City, 1991 © Nicola L. Collection and Archive. Photo by Rita Barro
Comment raconter la mer ?
Comment raconter la mer ?
A selection of works from the Frac Bretagne and Fonds départemental d’art contemporain d’Ille-et-Vilaine collections
Does talking about the sea when you live on the coast produce the same message as when you’re there temporarily on vacation?
Do vacations by the sea, with my brother, my sister, my mother, have the same flavor as a daily life lived on the coast?
This is the question raised by the theme of this exhibition, like a challenge to the works.
Through a multi-faceted selection of sculptures and installations, drawings, paintings, films and photographs, works from the collections of the Frac Bretagne and the Fonds départemental d’art contemporain d’Ille-et-Vilaine, invite us to reflect on how we write the story of our lives.
From gentle sunsets under Sugar and Cream to introspective moments of meditation on the course of things, from mad surfing sessions to long, leisurely strolls along the “chemin des douaniers”, life by the sea is a mix of unforgettable memories and simple moments of bliss.
From the top of an observatory or low on the sand, the story is there, accessible to everyone, within reach of experience, ready to emerge from our simplest and wildest feelings.
Get out your pens and smartphones! Start writing postcards and other text messages, and let your inspiration flow from your visit to this travel exhibition.
Works by Gilles Aillaud, Yuna Amand, Isabelle Arthuis, Virginie Barré, Muriel Bordier, Jean Degottex, Marcel Dinahet, Jacques Faujour, Edgar Flauw, Julie Giraud, Michel Gouéry, Elodie Guignard, Jean-Philippe Lemée, Gwenn Mérel, Olivier Mourgue, Eric Tabuchi / Nelly Monnier, Charlotte Vitaioli,
February 8 to March 30, 2025
Free exhibition
La Maison Prébendale, Saint-Pol-de-Léon (29)
Image: Marcel Dinahet, Sur la plage de Dinard, 2000, Fonds départemental d’art contemporain d’Ille-et-Vilaine © Marcel Dinahet. Video capture (détail). Courtesy de l’artiste
Monts et merveilles
Monts et merveilles
A selection of works from the Frac Bretagne and Fonds départemental d’art contemporain d’Ille-et-Vilaine collections
Combining the themes of Dehors! (the commune’s cultural program) and marine animals (the subject of work at the La Vigie municipal school), the exhibition of works from the collections of Frac Bretagne and the Fonds départemental d’art contemporain d’Ille-et-Vilaine offers a combination of fascinating artistic proposals.
Admirable and astonishing things, people from the abyss or creatures from daydreams, space inside or outside, silences and sound effects, all ingredients come together to build a fabulous world.
Inspired by picture books or scientific research, or created from scratch by an overflowing imagination, the artists’ proposals invite us to plunge into a fantastic universe that tilts us into a parallel world.
To rebuild the world, consolidate life or re-enchant it, the works propose alternatives, towards a lost paradise, rediscovered!
March 1 to April 20, 2025
Image: Quentin Montagne, Les Merveilles de la nature, ou Henri Sauvage dans les bois #3, 2019 (detail). Fonds départemental d’art contemporain d’Ille-et-Vilaine © Quentin Montagne. Photo credit: Quentin Montagne
Current exhibitions
Beauregard flottant
Beauregard flottant
Beauregard flottant is the Frac Bretagne’s open-air gallery. It currently features flags created by artists :
As the wind blows, these works of art invite you to take an artistic stroll. They adorn Beauregard, now considered a sensitive and poetic space, a district where art floats.
The location of the masts was defined with local residents: les Embarqué.es de Beauregard.
Free exhibition.
A location map is available at the Frac Bretagne welcome desk.
Beauregard flottant is a participative artistic initiative supported by Frac Bretagne, Territoires Rennes and the City of Rennes.
Image © Frac Bretagne
In situ Works
The Hanging Man/Sleeping Man
The Hanging Man/Sleeping Man
The Hanging Man/Sleeping Man wallpaper appeared in several of the artist Rober Gober’s installations. The iconography is intriguing: a lynched black man is hanging from a tree, while a sleeping white man contrasts with the decorative nature of the wallpaper. This scene evokes the history of racial inequality in the United States at a time when American society was shaken by many upheavals: the AIDS epidemic, the culture wars and the Los Angeles race riots.
“By putting this image on a wallpaper that keeps repeating itself, I tried to say, metaphorically, that this was not an isolated event and that, in a way, it has become our background.” Robert Gober
Discover this work from the collection during your visit to Frac Bretagne, Rennes.
The artist
Robert Gober
Born in 1954 in Wallingford (USA)
Lives and works in New York
Since the early 1980s, Robert Gober has explored sexuality, religion and politics in a subversive and enigmatic way.
In addition to these interests, the human body and the object play an important role in his work. As a sculptor, he creates domestic or familiar objects – shoes, sinks, wallpaper – and fragments of the body, which he stages in installations combining sculpture, photography and drawing.
Image : Robert Gober, Hanging Man/Sleeping Man, 1989. Frac Bretagne Collection © Robert Gober. Photo : Richard Dumas
Le Pédilove
Le Pédilove
This installation by French Artist Anaïs Touchot (born in 1987 in Dinan), situated in Frac Bretagne’s Canyon, is a space where the public is invited to relax, read, listen, scribble, hide, or chat, surrounded by barricades/palisades and tatami mats. Le Pédilove offers a place for lounging, encouraging bodies to adopt a slightly softer attitude, waiting and lascivious. Words painted on fabrics, table and signs play with expressions lifted from hypnosis, meditation, and coaching tutorials, adding a “fortune cookie” aspect to the artificial environment.
By inventing a space that borrows codes from multiple places, Anaïs Touchot carries on with her work as a “builder” or “demolisher” of shared spaces, affirming her role in the production of forms in which she diverts the weight of materials, removing any aspect of solemnity. A spirit of derision hovers in the titles of her latest works: “I will leave my old skin there”, “Muddy Glory”, “Lost Cat”, “Beauty worker”. These installations use catchphrases and buzzwords as a way of anchoring oneself in a shared banality, one that levels hierarchies, bringing together the art of the beauty salon, the football match, or the cat bar. “Relax, everything will be fine”.
The Canyon
The so-called “skylight” space was transformed in 2019 into a “canyon”, a hybrid space between an artistic experimentation platform and an educational space. It is inhabited by the passable installation “Le Pédilove” by Anaïs Touchot. It is a friendly and flexible place that promotes debate and the collective as well as individual experience – it is equipped with tables, seats, documentary resources, etc.
Untitled (Corrupting the absolute)
Untitled
(Corrupting the Absolute)
Deposit of the Centre national des arts plastiques
Born in 1960, Berlin-based Austrian artist Peter Friedl is a major presence on the international art scene. He started out as a theatre critic in the early 1980s, before devoting himself to the visual arts, and he retains a strong connection to the theatre. This is reflected in his exhibitions, which are made like actual sets, with and without set changes, according to the complexity of the project.
In a quest for new narrative forms, his projects explore, in specifically organized contexts, the construction of history and concepts, always informed by revisiting major themes, including childhood, history, sociology and the animal world. With wit and irony, the artist points out the dead ends of modernity, between the utopias of yesterday and today’s compromises.
The many references in his works, and the various methods he uses to express them (drawing, video, photography, installation, etc.) constitute a dense corpus, blending the suggestion of personal history with that of the collective. Friedl’s work is difficult to grasp in an instant; rather, it demands to be considered dynamically. The artist explains that he is looking for ambiguity and confusion, never the precision of an immediate reading. In 1998 he claimed “that misunderstanding is part of understanding”.
Untitled (Corrupting the Absolute) is composed of handwritten letters in red neon.
It transcribes a reference, jotted down in one of the many notebooks that the artist – an attentive observer – carries with him during the course of his daily life, borrowed from the American essayist and rock critic Greil Marcus*.
An underground cult figure, Marcus likes to underscore the oppositions and contrary forces that construct an artist’s genius, just as Peter Friedl emphasizes the analogies as much as the ruptures and gaps that provoke vertigo.
“Corrupting the Absolute” asserts itself as an abstract injunction to remind us that art, if it exists, does not deliver answers, that it first and foremost pushes us to question ourselves. Installed in the lobby, this piece can be seen as an introduction to the philosophy of the Frac Bretagne.
*Corrupting the Absolute is the title of a chapter of the untranslated book: In the Fascist Bathroom: Punk in Pop Music, 1977-1992, published by Greil Marcus in 1993.
Image : Peter Friedl Untitled (Corrupting the Absolute), 2000 FNAC 02-773 Centre national des arts plastiques © Peter Friedl – Photo credit : Galerie Erna Hécey (Luxembourg)
En coulisses
En coulisses
Yes ! There are backstage at the Frac. The display is full of surprises, don’t you think? These heights, the visual echoes between paintings and photographs are indeed astonishing. Maybe you already know it : this collection is yours. It is a common good that a team of professionals is taking care of so that in decades, we can still understand and appreciate it.
The Frac Bretagne collection brings together works of artists from different generations and art scenes whether local, regional and international. Abstraction is one of the historical bases of the collection which also unfolds around thematic axes: works in relation to nature, that question the status of the contemporary image, the artist as a witness to his/her time, as well as as large monographic bodies.
The works go in and out from this storage for exhibitions and participatory projects. The FRACs are indeed the most widely distributed public collections in France. This principle of mobility defines these institutions as essential players in regional policies aiming to reduce geographical and social disparities in access to culture. Thus, FRACs are facilitating the discovery of contemporary art by the most diverse types of publics.
For you, the Frac has recorded voices to listen to. You’ll her an improbable flight attendant, fine connoisseur of conservation issues, witnesses recounting their memories of the works that you can see, technicians who know the collection better than anyone, works that speak to each other… and also the public with whom the Frac sets up numerous projects throughout the region and who has bring art pieces into their venues.
Image : Storage on show, 2021, Frac Bretagne, Rennes. Photo credit : Aurélien Mole
The sculpture park of Kerguéhennec
The sculptures of the Domaine de Kerguéhennec
The history of the Frac Bretagne is closely linked to that of the sculpture park of the Domaine de Kerguéhennec in Morbihan, which in the 1980s was a magnificent playground for artists as prestigious as Richard Long, Giuseppe Penone and Jean Pierre Raynaud.
Their experiments in this Morbihan park helped build the identity of the Frac and its collection, which is particularly oriented towards landscape issues.
WORKS FROM THE FRAC BRETAGNE COLLECTION
- François Bouillon, Cène d’extérieur, 1986-1987
- Etienne Hajdu, Sept colonnes à Stéphane Mallarmé, 1969-1971
- Harald Klingelhöller, Mit Buchstaben der Worte : Unrecht schreit (avec les lettres de : l’injustice crie), 1995
- Richard Long, Un cercle en Bretagne (A circle in Brittany), 1986
- Guiseppe Penone, Sentier de charme, 1986
- Jean-Pierre Raynaud, 1000 pots bétonnés peints pour une serre ancienne, 1986
- Ulrich Rückriem, Bild Stock, 1985
- Keith Sonnier, Porte-vue, 1987
Free admission
The park is open every day (except in case of weather alert)
Image : Richard Long, Un cercle en Bretagne (A Circle in Brittany), 1986. Parc du domaine de Kerguéhennec, Bignan © ADAGP, Paris. Photo credit: Florian Kleinefenn.
Saint-Carré
Saint-Carré, 1991
In 1991, Robert Milin was invited to participate in Escales, an event curated by Jérôme Sans, which proposed to invest various places in the Côtes-d’Armor in a close relationship with the landscape. The artist then became interested in a small rural commune, Saint-Carré, and its inhabitants, with whom he made friends. Sharing with them the local life, at the crossroads of ancestral activities – work of the fields and care of the animals – and of the modern life, he has soon access to the personal photographs of several families.
In these boxes lie as many silent witnesses of the collective religious or secular events that have marked the village, as intimate moments that take on importance only in the history of each. He chose to bring 13 of these photos to light by enlarging them, transferring them either to enamel plates or to porcelain, and placing them, with the active complicity of the inhabitants, in different parts of Saint-Carré: the playground, the gable of a barn, the henhouse, etc. In doing so, he created a work of public art that overturned the usual canons, notably in the relationship between the private and the public: the private became public and the entire village an open-air exhibition space.
In 1994, the Frac Bretagne acquired Saint-Carré, a work that particularly resonates with one of its essential missions, to bring the citizen closer to the challenges of today’s art. Like any work in the public space, Saint-Carré has suffered the assaults of time and the vagaries of weather. Carried by the common will of the inhabitants, the Frac Bretagne and the artist, a restoration was undertaken at the good care of the latter in 2018. In addition to the renovation of certain pieces, this process led to the reorganization of the hanging, to take into account the changes in ownership, the evolution of the building and the roadway.
WORK FROM THE FRAC BRETAGNE COLLECTION
Image : Robert Milin, Chan’nic, Saint-Carré, 1991 © Robert Milin – Photo credit: Frac Bretagne