MAC/VAL — About — Slash Paris

On November 17th, 2005, the first contemporary art museum to be created in a suburb of Paris was inaugurated in Vitry-sur-Seine. This is the story of the Mac/Val, born of a generous political project and an original artistic ambition.

Afacility of such scale is often the result of a long preparation. It all began in 1982. At that time, the first laws on decentralisation meant that Vitry–sur-Seine took administrative control of the management of its cultural affairs. The General Council of the Val-de-Marne chose to support contemporary art and the decision was taken to create a County collection of contemporary art (Fonds départemental d’art contemporain — Fdac), composed of acquisitions made from artists. The aim of this collection was to enable the circulation of works through exhibitions and loans.

An innovative place dedicated to the French art scene since 1950 The task was entrusted to the art critic Raoul-Jean Moulin, who was then working for the weekly paper L’Humanité, and who was able to inspire an original orientation to this collection through works acquired from artists implanted in the Val-de-Marne and the Ile-de-France regions. But the desire to reinforce the link between the collection and the local population gradually led to the creation of a museum. The town of Vitry-sur-Seine was chosen in 1990 by the Regional Council because it had plenty of land available. Another fifteen years were needed for the site to see the light of day. The appointment of a curator in 1998 made it possible to define a cultural project endorsed by the French state department of museums (Direction des musées de France), with the aim of making the Mac/Val a unique place, exclusively dedicated to the French art scene since the 1950s. A choice which made it necessary to add to the existing collections without detracting from the ambition to create a museum intended above all for the local population.