It’s the perfect time. Lavender is in bloom, heavy rain has made the landscape green. The Blachère Foundation celebrates its 20th anniversary and inaugurated, on June 29, its new art center at Bonnieux station, in the heart of the Luberon. For this very special day, more than 500 people were present.
The corporate foundation dedicated to contemporary African art, created by Jean-Paul Blachère and directed for three years by his daughter, Christine, is taking on a new dimension. By leaving the industrial zone of Apt and the company Blachère Illumination, specialist in eco-responsible illuminations for communities, she hopes to attract a wider audience thanks to a much more bucolic setting. Christine Blachère was looking for a new space. When she discovered this one, she didn’t hesitate for long. The station of Bonnieux, disused, had been bought by the fashion designer Pierre Cardin, who invested heavily in stone, in particular, 5 kilometers away, by offering the castle Lacoste, that of the Marquis de Sade. More than two years after the couturier’s death, the station, where receptions were given, found a new function, which its former owner would not deny: a contemporary art center. Totally renovated and transformed inside, the new 500 square meter space won everyone over.
It’s a big investment: 3 million euros for the purchase and renovation. After five months of work carried out by the architect and museographer Zette Cazalas, of the Zen dCo firm, the old station can host its first exhibition and play on three distinct spaces, each illuminated differently from the others. The first is inspired by the foundation’s former art center: a large room plunged into darkness where the lighting makes the works stand out. The second, where white dominates, is its exact opposite. Finally, upstairs, a large room benefits from beautiful natural light.
The exhibition brings together the works of 24 African and diaspora artists, under the title of “Chimeras”. The theme explores the limits between the real and the imaginary. The works immerse visitors in a world populated by hybrid creatures, refer them to tales and myths, call for imagination and transcendence while questioning hybridity and identity. In front of these works, everyone is free to interpret these chimeras in the light of their culture and their sensitivity.
The majority of the exhibited works belong to the foundation’s collection, such as those of Soly Cissé, Omar Ba, Aliou Diack, Retha Erasmus and Ousmane Niang. We can also see the “Solipsis”, winged and so delicate creatures, made of wood, polystyrene and neon, that their creator, the artist Wim Botha, lent for the occasion.
From the entrance, the impressive work of Oumar Ball hovers over the visitor. The artist draws his inspiration from the memories of his childhood, which he spent in the Fouta-Toro region, on the banks of the Senegal River.
A little further, we discover the work of the Senegalese artist Fally Sene Sow. A world or rather the end of a world. This immersive installation Rusty World, presented in 2022 at the Biennial of Contemporary African Art in Dakar, unfolds in the form of a model of a dystopian city composed of a thousand elements, a 5-star hotel in poor condition, trees growing on the roads, winged creatures flying overhead. “It’s a world consumed by time, flowing between order and chaos and from which creatures arise. This work, I did it between 2018 and 2022. It was supposed to be a colorful city, a description of Dakar, with its atmosphere, its joie de vivre, when all is well. It was selected for the 2020 Dakar Biennale. With the Covid-19 pandemic, I had to layer all the elements in my studio, exposed to the elements – rain and wind. I was having my coffee in front. The birds made their nests in the houses. The grasses have grown. Time does its work, so I let this one live,” says Fally Sene Sow. “Our role as artists is to show things not visible to the naked eye. Chimeras belong to this world of beliefs and culture. Some of these figures are known, some are not,” he continues.
In addition to exhibitions, two a year, the art center organizes artists’ workshops and will soon have a documentation center and a cinema. The mission of the Blachère Foundation remains unchanged: it is to welcome emerging artists in residence. It bears the travel, accommodation and working expenses of the guest artists and pays them a per diem (compensation for their daily expenses). In return, the work produced during the residency enters the foundation’s collection and will be exhibited. The organization also undertakes not to resell the productions. To sustain the foundation, enrich it and continue the work of meeting with the artists hired by Jean-Paul Blachère, at least two trips a year are organized in Africa. “Typically when we make a direct purchase from an artist, behind there is a residency and an exhibition of the work. And this one is in our catalogue,” explains Christine Blachère. Over the past two years, the Blachère Foundation team has traveled to Gabon, South Africa, Namibia, Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso and Dakar. In twenty years, the corporate foundation has built up a collection of 2,000 works.
“By setting up our art center at Bonnieux station, we want to reach a wider audience. The insiders who knew us and who spent their holidays in the Luberon, it bothered them anyway to go through the industrial zone. Our audience remained very local, and we want to keep it. We also turn to instinctive tourism, to those who will pass on the cycle route and therefore in front of the station. We are settling more in the heart of traffic routes and tourist life. We had between 17,000 to 18,000 visitors a year. We hope to attract double that,” says Christine Blachère.
“By charging the entrance – 5 euros -, we seek a little self-financing”, specifies Christine Blachère. The family business, Blachère Illumination, has a turnover of some 50 million euros.
Christine Blachère, who has just spent three years at the head of the family foundation, considers that there was “a real transmission” when her father passed the torch to her. “His first exhibitions, I watched them a bit from afar. But when it came to going, I found it absolutely fascinating: meeting the artists, traveling, being immersed in this universe of creation in Africa, often with unexpected discussions. I feel like a provincial in Paris. I feel better in Africa, alongside the artists,” she admits. Finally, she who held the position of brand director in the family business and created a subsidiary in Spain, believes that “the transmission of the foundation was done much more easily than that of the company”.
If her father is known for his impulsive side, she cuts corners. “It took a lot of conviction to keep this art center alive for twenty years in the industrial area of ??Apt. I had friends who didn’t want to come,” she recalls.
Today, the foundation offers itself a more suitable setting. “The interior is successful. I hope the exhibition is beautiful. Me, I like her a lot. An exhibition like this makes me happy for six months,” she smiles.
* The “Chimères” exhibition is on view until November 18, 2023, from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and from 2 to 6 p.m., and until 7 p.m. in July and August, at Bonnieux station (Vaucluse ). The artists exhibited: Joël Andrianomearisoa (Madagascar), Seyni Awa Camara (Senegal), Omar Ba (Senegal), Oumar Ball (Mauritania), Retha Erasmus (South Africa), Wim Botha (South Africa), Soly Cissé (Senegal) , Aliou Diack (Senegal), Gastineau Massamba (Congo), Nandipha Mntambo (South Africa), Ousmane Niang (Senegal), Nyaba Léon Ouedraogo (Burkina Faso), Sadikou Oukpedjo (Togo), Pedro Pires (Angola), Lyndi Sales ( South Africa), Ghizlane Sahli (Morocco), Fally Sene Sow (Senegal), Mamady Seydy (Senegal), Jake Michael Singer (South Africa), Aïcha Snoussi (Tunisia), Cyprien Tokoudagba (Benin), Donald Wasswa (Kenya) , Barbara Wildenboer (South Africa), Dominique Zinkpé (Benin).
