On 24th, 25th and 26th November 2017, the contemporary art centres celebrated the 25th anniversary of the DCA association with a three-day event that was open to the public at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. Sponsored by the Ministry of Culture and numerous partners, this anniversary was an opportunity for a festive, artistic and political celebration of art centres.
The event was designed around an artistic programme based on works produced by the art centres (performances, videos, sound works, readings) and a programme of meetings bringing together artists, art critics, philosophers, sociologists, economists, and directors of French and international artistic structures. Within a scenography specially designed for the purpose by Romain Guillet, the Galerie Haute of the Palais de Tokyo took the form of an agora intended to bring together all these participants for debates, round tables, conferences and testimonies around three major themes that are at the heart of the concerns of art centres: freedom of creation and experimentation, the economics of contemporary art, and the links between art and democracy, and between the public and the regions.
The work of some fifty artists was presented, reflecting the artistic forms that the art centres are responsible for supporting, producing and disseminating. Hundreds of editions and publications produced by the contemporary art centres were made accessible for perusal, while a monumental graphic device designed by Marie Proyart brought together for the event in a vast visual inventory the names of some 15,000 artists presented by the art centres since their creation.
This event was produced with the support of the Ministry of Culture as well as the ADAGP, the Institut français, the Fondation d’Entreprise Ricard and the Royal Norwegian Embassy.