In the United States, France will create the Villa Albertine, a new artists’ residence, in the fall

The gesture is meant to be symbolic, more than 350 years after the founding of the Académie de France in Rome, which has since become the Villa Medici. Friday July 2, the French government was to announce the creation, in the fall, of a new artist residency in the United States, its first on the American continent. Called Villa Albertine, it will not be located in a single city but spread over ten metropolises (New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, Atlanta, New Orleans, etc.) and will welcome sixty creators, researchers and researchers every year. and cultural professionals, who will be invited to confront their art and practices with the realities of the world’s leading power.

“As Italy won in the XVII^e century, the Villa Albertine takes note of a new global geography of arts and ideas, where the United States is playing a leading role more than ever, but where France can also gain positions ”, explains Jean-Yves Le Drian, Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs, who will have supervision over this decentralized residence, even if it is co-financed by the Ministry of Culture. It is the first time since 1992, and the inauguration of Villa Kujoyama in Kyoto, that France has decided to create a new artist residency abroad. A first branch of the Villa Albertine was launched in the summer of 2020 in San Francisco.

Unlike the three other existing French Villas (Medici in Rome, Kujoyama in Kyoto and Casa de Velazquez in Madrid), Villa Albertine will not offer its residents to withdraw from the world to create, but on the contrary to send them “outside the walls ”, to immerse them in the daily life of Americans. “We’re not going to bring an artist to New York to lock himself up for three months. On the contrary, we will plunge it into the heart of reality, create meetings, exchanges, collaborations ”, explains Gaëtan Bruel, cultural advisor to the French ambassador to the United States, Philippe Etienne, and first director of the Villa Albertine. It is also for this reason that the residence will be disseminated in ten cities, “To be as close as possible to the field in a country-continent”.

Concretely, each resident will be accompanied by a member of the cultural services of the French Embassy, ​​who will organize their stay, find the best contacts for them, and set their appointments. “The objective is to make tailor-made, to adapt to the project of each artist”, we explain. Fifteen professional support programs (dance, literature, design, theater, etc.) will also be created for residents but also other creators or entrepreneurs, who will occasionally come and participate. Objective: to enable them to better understand the American cultural market and to help them penetrate it.

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