X YEARS AT FRAC — WHITE SPIRIT, THE RETURN

Who better to celebrate the X years at 49 Nord 6 Est than an anarchitect! FRAC Lorraine, a singular, unclassifiable place, enjoys subverting and mixing up knowledge, and above all, experimenting. There is no one better than Gianni Pettena to transform this space and its perception by creating an airy, mercurial installation that goes against the grain of centuries’ old, static architecture. Gianni Pettena, whose work is at the crossroads of art and architecture, has never built much and claims that his only architecture project is his cabin on the island of Elba. As a principal figure of Italian Radical Architecture*, Pettena spends more time thinking than laying bricks. By proposing to hide the building that has housed FRAC Lorraine for the past ten years, Pettena’s gesture renews the poetics of the site’s inauguration. Hans Schabus’s labyrinth of white cardboard is still fresh in our memory as are the many performances in the form of a manifesto at the launching of FRAC. Since then, FRAC has not wavered from its goals: initiating new curatorial practices by inviting the audience to act and react; combining knowledge and sensory experiments; anticipating and explaining social, ecological, and philosophical changes…

For ten years, FRAC has constantly challenged clichés and stereotypes about art and culture.