Villa Medici supports fellows in their post-residency career and encourages the circulation of their work in France through two initiatives: ¡ Viva Villa ! and production grants.
Created in 2016, ¡ Viva Villa ! is an initiative of the major French residences abroad: Villa Medici (Rome), Casa de Velázquez (Madrid), Villa Kujoyama (Kyoto) – and since 2023, with Villa Medici Albertine (USA). Working together to provide professional support for their former residents fellows, the four Villa Medici residencies have developed ¡Viva Villa! in the form of an event that has spread throughout the network of cultural institutions, theaters, festivals, stages and art centers in mainland France and overseas. The idea? To co-produce a dozen or so projects throughout France each season (exhibitions, concerts, performances, editorial and radio projects), highlighting the work of creators from the four institutions. This program gives French audiences the chance to discover the work they have carried out during their residencies in Rome, Madrid, Kyoto and the United States.
To mark the 7th edition of the ¡Viva Villa! festival, Collection Lambert, a long-standing partner of the event, is proposing a transdisciplinary project entitled TRANSFORMER.S. , a long-term program hosted by the Avignon institution from May 25, 2024.
For its latest issue, IF magazine is taking part in the ¡Viva Villa! 2024-2025 season with a special edition featuring only artists who have taken part in France’s international residency programs (Académie de France à Rome – Villa Médicis in Rome, Casa de Velázquez in Madrid, Villa Kujoyama in Kyoto and Villa Albertine in the USA).
As part of the Lyon Biennial, Alix Boillot presents two salt installations (L’Éternité (2) and Lacrymatoires) and a performance (L’Éternité (1)) on October 12 and 13.
This project was conceived as an extension of Hélène Bertin’s residencies at Villa Medici (Rome) and Sébastien Desplat’s at Villa Kujoyama (Kyoto). Engaged in an artistic exploration of living resources, popular and artisanal know-how and their links with natural materials, they will be accompanied by an imagière, Bettina Henni, and a specialist craftswoman. plant colors, Lola Verstrepen. Travelling back and forth between Rome, Marseille and the Luberon, these four creators will combine their sensibilities and techniques for an original joint production that will be presented on Saturday August 31 at 11am at Studio Fotokino for the opening of a joint exhibition running until September 21.
The MAT program focuses on water in all its forms, from sensitive to poetic to scientific approaches. Following a series of encounters from May 14 to 17, the program includes screenings and workshops open to all, in collaboration with the École des beaux-arts Nantes Saint-Nazaire, the École supérieure d’art et de design TALM and the École primaire Joachim Du Bellay de Montrelais. The “Nous les vagues” exhibition explores local water resources with a transdisciplinary approach.
Through a system of production grants, Villa Medici supports its fellows artists by co-financing, with the help of cultural partners, the projects they initiate during their residency in Rome. One of Villa Medici’s concerns is to think about the post-residency period, as part of a collaborative approach. The introduction of this support scheme in 2018 has enabled many partners to be involved, creating a leverage effect so that the artists’ projects can see the light of day.
Territoires hétérotopiques confirms the experiential vocation of the Centre, aka the vessel, which in this season XENOS & INCOMMENSURABLES pursues the aspiration of epistemic disobedience.
In the Villa Medici fountain, Alix Boillot invites Roman drummer Valentina D’Angelo to perform Jeff Buckley’s Grace, contradicting for a moment the horizontal destiny of water. A song said to have been a premonition of its author’s drowning in the muddy waters of a Mississippi tributary.
With Le Service des Panacées, writer Laure Limongi proposes a highly unexpected form of encounter: special medical consultations during which she prescribes readings…
By its very title, “Ampersand”, Joël Riff’s sixth proposal for La Verrière, asserts the collaborative dimension that guides its programming and fundamentally nourishes the practice of artist Hélène Bertin, as in this exhibition produced in partnership with the Académie de France in Rome.
In the new works unveiled in Anna Solal’s monographic exhibition at Frac Occitanie Montpellier entitled “Mille Projectiles”, the human figure makes a comeback through large-scale 1:1 drawings in which characters, often in groups, appear; their postures recalling those taken by families or bands of friends to immortalize shared moments.
For its latest edition in partnership with the Villa Medici, Académie de France in Rome, the Genius Loci association presented in Paris, in a place emblematic of the history of modern architecture, a group of “Roman” works by multidisciplinary artist Benoît Maire.