La nouvelle galerie d’art Nathan Chiche redonne vie à l’école Jean Prouvé près de Metz

The article

On the CNEWS website, on 8 May 2024, Serge Nadjar announced the conversion of Jean Prouvé's former school in Vantoux, five kilometres from Metz, into a venue for contemporary art. He introduces the founder, Nathan Chiche, then aged 24, and recalls the history of the building, listed as a historic monument: a competition launched in 1949 by the Ministry of National Education, construction completed in two weeks during the Reconstruction, a classroom, a workshop and a covered playground, and pupils taught there until 2014.

The article highlights the participation of Jean-Pierre Raynaud, known for his golden flowerpot, which stood for more than ten years in front of the Centre Pompidou and was shown in the Forbidden City in Beijing, and who now rarely accepts exhibitions. His vanitas pieces screen-printed on ceramic, presented at the 1993 Venice Biennale, where he received the prize of honour, then completed in 2010 with coloured letters evoking childhood, are placed on the original desks; in the workshop, they are revealed beneath Prouvé's portholes.

Nathan Chiche defends the idea of exhibiting works away from the white wall, in dialogue with a piece of architecture. He announces four exhibitions a year, each setting a single artist against Prouvé, and hopes for 35,000 visitors annually. The journalist mentions his family background (a grandmother who specialised in faience, a great-grandfather who was a bookbinder, and his mother, the gallerist Patricia Chicheportiche, co-founder of the venue) and his wish to take advantage of the appeal of the Centre Pompidou-Metz during the closure of the Paris Centre Pompidou, from 2025 to 2030, in order to create an art trail around Metz.

Read the article on the CNEWS website ↗