Ouverture de la Galerie Nathan Chiche dans l'ancienne école Jean Prouvé à Vantoux

The article

On 19 April 2024, the website Actu.Art announced the opening, in May, of Galerie Nathan Chiche in Vantoux, ten minutes from Metz, in a former school by Jean Prouvé. Nathan Chiche explains that he wishes to bring the building back to life while preserving its heritage, to keep Prouvé's industrial aesthetic while opening it to a present-day vision, and soon to add an art bookshop to the gallery.

The article dwells on the architecture. Born of a competition launched in 1949 by the Ministry of National Education, the school was inaugurated in 1951. Assembled entirely by dry construction, with sheet metal and bolted or clipped elements, it was built in two weeks; it comprised a classroom, a workshop and the schoolmaster's lodging, and was listed as a historic monument (supplementary inventory) in 2001.

From 16 May to 26 August 2024, Jean-Pierre Raynaud's Vanités, ceramics bearing the representation of a Neolithic skull, are set against Prouvé's modular structures. The exhibition occupies two rooms: in the first, the twelve original two-seater desks serve as bases for the works; the second is conceived as if the children themselves were exhibiting their work there.