© DR
© DR

49 Nord 6 Est - Frac Lorraine

The 49 Nord 6 Est – Frac Lorraine styles itself as a showcase of the multiplicity of influences around it. Its offerings include exhibitions, debates, public lectures, film screenings, concerts and performances.

Based in a region whose boundaries have often shifted over time, the Frac breaks away from conventional forms, with a schedule of contemporary art-related events designed to challenge the hierarchies and canons of artistic tradition — male, white and Western. It acts as a forum for exchange and debate, promoting creativity, ideas and experimentation as a means of countering cultural isolationism.

Claire Pentecost, Proposal for a New American Agriculture, 2006 Vue de l’exposition Présences Voyageuses 49 Nord 6 Est - Frac Lorraine, Metz (FR), 2019. © C. Pentecost. Photo : Fred Dott
Claire Pentecost, Proposal for a New American Agriculture, 2006 Vue de l’exposition Présences Voyageuses 49 Nord 6 Est – Frac Lorraine, Metz (FR), 2019. © C. Pentecost. Photo : Fred Dott

Its activities extend throughout the Lorraine area, particularly in Metz, in the Hôtel Saint Livier, as well as across the Grand Est administrative region of north-eastern France , networking with the Frac Alsace and the Frac Champagne-Ardenne. Its collection of 1,530 works, ever mindful of the place of female artists in the creative ecosystem, is the wellspring of projects conducted in cooperation with other regional players, with the aim of raising public awareness and questioning the surrounding environment.

Fanny Gonella © Photo : Celine Gaille
Fanny Gonella © Photo : Celine Gaille

For a project to exist, it must be socially relevant

But what exactly do you do at the Frac? This is probably the question I was most often asked when I first arrived here. Coming from a professional background largely unfamiliar with this institution, I needed to think about how I could give a concise reply. Particularly so, as my reply needed to reflect the diverse range of initiatives on offer – the Frac is an all-purpose, all-round structure, able to slip into a market or a school; it is able to operate in any type of context and constantly uncovers new spheres of application.

To impress my former colleagues abroad, I sometimes explain that we organise about six exhibitions a year in our premises, and eighteen region-wide. They usually ask me to repeat these figures and the mention of the latter one usually gives them food for thought. Admittedly, this is not standard practice in the visual arts world. Luckily we have a whole team of people who make this possible, thanks to their know-how and inventiveness, as well as their knowledge of the artists and their works, and of our partners.

In this kind of working environment, for a project to exist, it must be socially relevant. In the past, the Frac Lorraine has been committed to feminism and ecology in the broadest sense. This work is ongoing, day after day, in an attempt to deconstruct the norms that govern society and our sensibilities, as well as phenomena such as ableism (disability discrimination) that render a certain segment of the population invisible. By generating its own language, the artwork acts as a key resource for embracing the emotional complexity of the present time in which we are constantly relearning how to navigate. It is therefore vital to acknowledge the artists who make this possible and allow us to advance in this direction.

— Fanny Gonella, Director of the 49 Nord 6 Est – Frac Lorraine

After studying Art History at the École du Louvre and at Sorbonne University (Paris I), Fanny Gonella was part of a FGYO (Franco-German Youth Office) exchange programme and worked at the Hamburger Kunsthalle. In Berlin, she worked for the neugerriemschneider gallery and founded the independent artspace Korridor, before undertaking projects in Vienna, Copenhagen, Paris, Berlin and Tel Aviv. She completed the Kurator curatorial programme in Rapperswil, Switzerland. Her previous curatorial experience was at the Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn, where she curated exhibitions by Claire Hooper, Timur Si-Qin, Anna Virnich, Ed Atkins and Luca Frei. In 2013, she was awarded the New York research grant from the Institut Français, in conjunction with Independent Curators International. In 2014, she was appointed director of the Künstlerhaus Bremen where she organised solo exhibitions of Henning Fehr and Philipp Rühr, Lina Hersmdorf, Margaret Honda, Marie Angeletti, Sidsel Meineche Hansen, Armando Andrade Tudela, Nadira Husain and Tomaso De Luca, as well as group exhibitions on the scope of women’s action styled upon the picaresque novel, on the extension of the public arena into the digital area, on the relationships between structures of power, forms of self-representation and economies of desire based on a publication by Lynda Benglis. She joined the 49 Nord 6 Est – Frac Lorraine in 2018.

Technical acquisition committee

Fatima Hellberg
Directrice du Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn
Fanny Gonella
Directrice du 49 Nord 6 Est – Frac Lorraine
Alice Motard
Directrice du CEAAC, Strasbourg
Haegue Yang
Artiste, Berlin / Séoul

Administration

Roselyne Bouvier
Présidente
Fanny Gonella
Directrice

Contact

49 Nord 6 Est - Frac Lorraine
1bis rue des Trinitaires, 57000 Metz, France

info@fraclorraine.org
T. +33 (0)3 87 74 20 02

Opening hours

MON
CLOSED
TUE
14h-18h
WED
14h-18h
THU
14h-18h
FRI
14h-18h
SAT
11h-19h
SUN
11h-19h
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