The Center Pompidou partner of a new artistic center in the New York suburbs

The Center Pompidou has forged a partnership with the city of Jersey City, in the New York suburbs, to open an exhibition center there by 2024. announced Friday, June 4 the city and the museum.

This will be the fifth major partnership, the first on the American continent, for the Center Pompidou, which has already lent its name to a cultural establishment in Metz, and to artistic centers in Malaga, Shanghai and Brussels.

Located on the west bank of the Hudson River, facing Manhattan, Jersey City is a former industrial city undergoing transformation and gentrification since the 1980s. The partnership was born from a meeting with the city’s elected officials, through the intermediary of the architectural firm OMA, explained to AFP Serge Lasvignes, president of the Center Pompidou.

“We did not call for tenders for an installation in the United States “, explained the president of the museum. “Honestly, for us, it is much more interesting to work with Jersey City which is a little virgin place from this point of view, than to go to a place where the offer is considerable.“, like New York.

The American metropolis already has two major museums of contemporary art, the MoMA and the Whitney, supplemented by the contemporary art offer of the Metropolitan Museum and the Guggenheim. In recent years, Jersey City has attracted an increasing number of artists, with the skyrocketing rents in New York. “The American continent was for us an objective of obvious interest”, said Serge Lasvignes. “In the field of contemporary art, America is crucial“, not considering “we are completely imbued with american culture“.

As with the previous partnerships, Jersey City will take care of the creation of the place, its operation and the associated costs. Jersey City plans to house the new space, which will house visual arts, architecture, design and performing arts, in the Pathside Building, an approximately 5,400 m2 building built in 1912, formerly a tram station. The Center Pompidou, which provides its engineering, its brand and its collections, will receive financial compensation, says Serge Lasvignes.

The place “is destined to become one of the most important cultural attractions in North America “, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy said in a statement. Culture must act as “a lever” for “enrich the image” from the city, “develop a community and make people live better together“, according to Serge Lasvignes. The project will thus also have a social dimension.

With these partnerships, explains the president of the Center, “the strategy consists in not being a passive spectator, but in registering in this movement of globalization of contemporary art, by going to ourselves on a certain number of stages”.

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