France’s National Center for Visual Arts to Move to Pantin in 2020

The CNAP is joining Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac in the up and coming area.

Francois Morellet, La Défonce (1990). Courtesy CNAP

The Centre National des Arts Plastiques (CNAP)—one of the largest public art collections in France, gathering over 100,000 works—is moving to Pantin, just outside of Paris, where it will unite its offices and extensive collection, Le Monde reports.

CNAP’s new headquarters will be located in the up-and-coming industrial neighborhood northeast of Paris, joining the Centre National de la Danse, luxury brands such as Hermès, and the vast branch of the commercial gallery Thaddaeus Ropac.

Yves Robert, the CNAP director, told Le Monde that while finding a suitable location inside Paris turned out to be extremely difficult, the Pantin space will fit all of the institution’s needs.

The CNAP will move into its new 280,000-square-foot home in 2020. With an annual budget of $10 million dollars, the $18 million price tag of the property seems reasonable for the CNAP.

The move was primarily motivated by the complexities associated with the collections’ distribution across three spaces, as well as the 2018 expiration date of its current location in the Paris area of La Défense.

Simon Proffitt, Salle des Épis, Cnap reserves. Courtesy of ©Cnap.

Simon Proffitt, Salle des Épis, Cnap reserves. Courtesy of ©Cnap.

Run by the Ministry of Culture and Communication, the CNAP lends most of its collection to public and private museums in France and abroad, while the rest is stored on reserve.

The CNAP hopes not only to unite all its collection under one roof, but also to become a hub of resources and documentation for artists and researchers alike.


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