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Vue de Kapwani Kiwanga, Flowers for Africa: Tunisia, FIAC, Galerie Jérôme Poggi, 2015, collection frac île-de-france, signed protocol by artist including iconographic documents, variable dimensions © Kapwani Kiwanga / Adagp, Photo : Aurélien Mole

Invitation – FRAC at Centre Pompidou

With the works of : Bas Jan Ader, Michel Aubry, Jo Baer, Chris Burden, Alan Davie, Koenrad Dedobbeleer, Edith Dekyndt, Dewar et Gicquel, Hubert Duprat, Daniel Firman, Layota Ruby Frazier, Alberto Garcia-Alix, Lothar Hempel, Bouchra Khalili, Kapwani Kiwanga*, Natalia LL, Teresa Margolles, Laurent Montaron, Matt Mullican, Bruno Peinado, Ricardo Porro, Collier Schorr, Elmar Trenkwalder

 

  • work drawn from frac île-de-france collection

 

For its 40th anniversary, the Centre Pompidou has invited the Fonds régionaux d’art contemporain (FRAC) to integrate the museum’s new display of artworks.

The new hanging of the contemporary collections peppered with a selection of works from the 23 FRAC is called Invitation.
These works have been chosen to bring to the forefront artists who are not yet part of the Musée national d’art moderne collections.


The work presented by the frac île-de-france is by Kapwani Kiwanga: Flowers for Africa: Tunisia

Flowers for Africa reveals the artist’s interest in colonial history and the difficulty in accessing it, as well as preserving its sources and transmission. The work was created from a newsreel in which Habib Bourguiba, the first president of the Republic of Tunisia, proclaimed independence on 20th March 1956. For this event he wore a flower in his buttonhole, more or less concealed in the photo by a microphone. This makes it difficult to determine what flower it is, perhaps a dahlia, a carnation or perhaps something else.

The artwork exists in the form of a protocol; the form depends on the interpretation of the instructions: each florist has the freedom to imagine the composition. The piece is therefore unique each time it is presented.


The FRAC public collections incorporate 26,000 works by 5,300 French and foreign artists. A third is exhibited to the public each year. Every year the FRAC organises almost 500 various events for an audience of more than a million and a half visitors. The works acquired contribute to a perspective on contemporary art, an ambitious and selective approach to the most advanced proposals produced since the 1960s by artists from five continents.

Since 2005, the Platform association has drawn the 23 FRAC together around three shared objectives for development and cooperation: to encourage group reflection on the duties of and challenges for the FRAC, to establish a centre for resources and information for its members and partners, to develop inter-regional and international exchanges and cooperation thanks to invitations from foreign curators.


Centre Pompidou
Niveau 4
Place Georges Pompidou
75004 Paris