Le Crédac, Centre d’art contemporain d’Ivry — About — Slash Paris

The Contemporary Art Center of Ivry — Crédac is an association organized under law 1901. Founded in 1987, the center originally occupied the basement galleries of the Jeanne Hachette Center, which was designed in the 1970s by the architect Jean Renaudie (1925-1981). Since 2011, Crédac has had a new address in the “American building” of the Manufacture des Œillets (the Eyelet Factory), which was erected in 1913 in keeping with the Daylight Factory model. The steel-and-glass structure recalling the Chicago School and Bauhaus was one of the first manifestations of functionalism in France.

Crédac is a space for meeting and sharing, and for engaging in experimentation, a structure for intellectually and technically assisting artists in their work. The center is driven by a professional team and its main mission is to support contemporary art in terms of its creation, research, diffusion and outreach to the general public. Crédac anchors its activities locally by working with the other cultural institutions operating in Ivry-sur-Seine. Crédac’s activities are also part of joint initiatives going on both regionally and nationally such as TRAM (the contemporary art network of Paris / Ile-de-France) and d.c.a. (développement des centres d’art, a French association for developing art centers). Specific projects are jointly elaborated with institutions on a national scale.

Crédac’s annual program includes three exhibitions and an online project, a film and video program, a lecture series, and an extramural outreach project. Crédac is also involved in contemporary-art publishing.

In September 2018, on the occasion of the publication of the book celebrating the 30th anniversary of the art centre, Crédac received the label: Contemporary Art Centre of National Interest.

Exhibitions

Each year Crédac develops a program of three group or solo shows to promote the work of artists active on the French and international art scenes who reflect the diversity of current practices and thinking about art. By supporting the production of art, Crédac hopes to foster the emergence and consolidation of art practices. Q&As are organized for each show, bringing together the general public, the artists, critics, curators, and thinkers to both clarify and enrich our understanding of the works on display. Outreach and educational initiatives involving guided tours of current shows and special workshops are also undertaken as part of our mission to raise awareness and the understanding of contemporary art. Designed to make access to contemporary art easier, these initiatives are aimed at students, young audiences and their families, and teachers in training.

Crédakino

Crédakino is a screening room at Crédac that provides optimal conditions for showing film and video artworks. Programing involves its own schedule and is regularly entrusted to guest artists and curators. Each screening is followed by an interview as a public outreach initiative. The idea is to offer artists the best conditions for presenting their work, and the general public privileged access to works of video art. This project was made possible thanks to the generous support of FNAGP.

Extramural projects

Each year the art center invites an artist to imagine a specific project aimed at a group of children or adults that plays out in long-term workshops (lasting from a few weeks to several years). These workshops enable the general public to share in visual artists’ experimentation and take part in their creative processes. They likewise offer artists a stimulating context of experimentation that feeds into their own practices. These projects are based on close cooperation between Crédac and its partners (educational institutions, recreation centers, municipal services, associations, etc.), and a desire for mutual commitment.

Royal Garden

Extending Crédac’s artistic mission to the internet, Royal Garden is the year’s fourth major initiative and exists online. Each edition of Royal Garden is the result of an invitation extended to curators, critics, artists, and graphic designers, who develop an entirely new curatorial project in a digital format. Royal Garden offers “visitors” a visual and interactive multidisciplinary experience that plays on the many possibilities that the web and multimedia tools make available.
You can access all the editions of Royal Garden at http://royalgarden.credac.fr/en

Editions / Mecca

Crédac has also been developing its publishing activities, bringing out exhibition catalogues, artists’ books, and monographs in partnership with a range of institutions in France and abroad. These works are available at the Crédac bookshop. An extension of such projects, Mecca is a free publication that takes a second look, through images and critical texts, at the issues and themes touched on in the center’s outreach and exhibition programs. Mecca opens an additional path for rereading and memory.