JOURNEY THROUGH THE HOLE OF FRANCE: PART 1 - Page 1

 

[published on a-n.co.uk in August 2005]

 

Stéphanie Delcroix takes an insight into the depth of France and discovers a wide network of flagship public art galleries

 

The road bends sharply, taking us deeper into the crevasse; a nearby raging torrent engulfs our voices. On our right, we can barely read ‘de l’Enfer’ on the façade of a decrepit building. We are in Thiers’ Vallée des Usines (Factories’ Valley) in front of place called Creux de l’Enfer, one of France’s thirty-two Centres d’art. These art centers are publicly funded galleries dedicated to contemporary art. Whilst the most famous of them all, the Palais de Tokyo, is in Paris, their vast majority is scattered across France in sometimes obscure, and unexpected, locations.

 

The small town of Thiers lies in Auvergne, a region of highlands, sleeping volcanoes and thermal resorts, known as the heart of France. A metaphor, which most French people readily substitute for the hole of France: the 1950s exodus has emptied Auvergne from its farmers and village dwellers. However, Thiers still holds a place in the collective memory of France, as the once flourishing centre of the knife industry. The business of crafting knifes is gradually giving giving way to the business of art and cultural tourism. The former knife factory ‘Creux de l’enfer’ was set up as a art center in the late 1980s. It kept the name it inherited from its dramatic setting: ‘Creux de l’Enfer’, the ‘Hole of Hell’, overhangs a deep chute in the shade of a dramatically narrow gorge.