A movement: creation x cooperation
Feminine noun, from the Latin industria (industry or activity) and magnus (big or grand).
L’Industrie Magnifique is a cooperative movement that brings together companies, artists and public bodies to promote and develop artistic creation, a culture of invention and industrial heritage in the regions.
An action: art meets industry in public spaces
Set up in Strasbourg in 2016 and supported by the Industrie & Territoires association, L’Industrie Magnifique takes the form of a concrete initiative: art meets industry in public spaces. A one-of-a-kind operation worldwide: public bodies from a specific region, département, or municipality, companies from that area, and artists from France or elsewhere in the world come together for 12 to 18 months in a different way of working to create, exhibit, narrate, etc.
CREATE
It all starts with an initial meeting between a company and an artist to work together with the aim of creating an original monumental artwork that symbolises the company, based on and using its own resources (know-how, materials, values, collaboration with staff, etc.). As many artist/company pairings as possible are formed, each leading to an original creation.
EXHIBIT
The next step is to bring together these artist/company pairings and local and regional public bodies in order to set up a collaboration with a view to exhibiting these works of art in the public spaces of a town or city, as part of a sort of open-air art gallery. This final mainstream event enlivens and promotes the territory, provides media coverage of artistic creation and enhances the reputation and image of both the patron companies and the artists.
NARRATE
Finally, the goal is to recount this process of cooperation, creation and exhibition, explaining the meaning of the initiative and of the artwork. The company, the artist and the public body give an account of their shared adventure and circulate it to their respective audiences: general public, employees, clients, suppliers, partners, press and media, etc. This process of narration, information and communication is a joint effort by the three participants – artist/company/public body – throughout the adventure.
An innovative public-private economic model
Within L’Industrie Magnifique, the companies supply the resources (financial, human, material, immaterial) from which the artists design and produce original works of art, which are initially exhibited in public spaces made available by the local and regional public bodies. L’Industrie Magnifique has invented a new model of cooperation between artists, industrialists and public bodies based on an original public/private patronage scheme:
PATRONAGE OF CREATIVITY
The production of each work of art begins by bringing together a company and an artist; it is financed by the company under a contract commissioning the creation of an original work of art from the artist. The resulting work of art is the property of the company.
EXHIBITION PATRONAGE
The exhibition of the works of art in public, and the associated events and communications, are produced through the collaboration of artists, companies, public bodies and other partners; this is mainly funded by financial gifts from the patron companies (4 possible levels of commitment: support, patron, major patron, grand patron) and by gifts in kind (know-how, materials, services, public spaces, advertising spaces, etc.) from the public bodies and other private or public partners.
An idea, a concept, an ambition
The idea of L’Industrie Magnifique emerged from the hotbed of its producers’ aspirations and desires: to coordinate and raise the profile of a territory and its actors, promote industrial know-how and heritage, develop cultural patronage and encourage creation in all its forms, supporting access for all to contemporary art. Along the way, it has also become a concept and an ambition…
The concept of L’Industrie Magnifique is that of a movement of cooperation between “creators”, each in its own field, each contributing to a common goal, given freely to the public in the form of an open-air art gallery:
The company: creates value, provides the resources
The artist: creates meaning, produces the artwork
The political sphere: creates a symbol, brings public spaces to life.
L’Industrie Magnifique also has an ambition:
To mobilise and unite more and more industrial, cultural and public operators at a regional level, then progressively at a national and international level;
To roll out L’Industrie Magnifique simultaneously in several regions of France, ultimately to form a regular national event; a genuine festival of art and industry
