The new contemporary art hub Komunuma is bringing together Parisian galleries and nonprofits

Paris galleries head to the suburbs 

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No one lives in Paris’ iconic city center anymore – or so I hear. One of the things I learn during the press preview for the new art hub Komunuma, which is opening on October 20 in the nearby town of Romainville, is that only one person can call Paris’ world-famous Place de la Madeleine home. ‘I would like to meet that person,’ jokes Jocelyn Wolff, one of the first gallerists to have joined the initiative. He then moves on to the difference between Paris’s center and Romainville. ‘People don’t live there,’ says Wolff of the former. ‘Romainville is a populated area, we’re in the middle of the urban center. Personally, I wanted to work in an environment that is changing. And anyway, people don’t associate the postcard historical center of Paris with cutting-edge contemporary art.’With a population of just over 26,000, Romainville is not far from Paris’s ring road, the infamous Périphérique. The distance from the city might be short, but the cultural divide remains significant, despite a few galleries venturing beyond its border, most notably&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/1135/Galerie-Thaddaeus-Ropac" target="_blank">Thaddaeus Ropac</a>&nbsp;to nearby Pantin. From the Métro, Kumunuma (‘community’ or ‘commune’ in Esperanto) is a 10-minute walk past office buildings and light industry. It’s hard not to imagine how much this area is going to change, with real-estate developers looking to expand beyond the city limits – and zoning limitations – of Paris proper.

The Komunuma site is being overhauled by Groupe Fiminco, which is also building housing and a food market in Romainville. Komunuma itself is taking over the former headquarters and factory of the now-defunct pharmaceutical company Roussel Uclaf. The 11,000-square-meter complex is made up of Modernist 1940s and 1950s buildings, ranging from a red-brick, warehouse-like structure to a former boiler room with a 14-meter-high ceiling – La Chaufferie – which will serve partly as an exhibition space. In the building between these two, four galleries have already moved in –&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/1325/Air-de-Paris" target="_blank">Air de Paris</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/1132/Galerie-Jocelyn-Wolff" target="_blank">Galerie Jocelyn Wolff</a>, In Situ – Fabienne Leclerc, and Galerie Sator. The Fonds régional d’art contemporain (Frac) Île-de-France is building a storage space there, Parsons Paris (the European campus of New York’s famous art and design school) is moving some of its MA programs to the complex, and the artists’ association Jeune Création will have its offices and an exhibition space on-site.Of the four galleries, Air de Paris and In Situ – Fabienne Leclerc have closed their Paris spaces, while the other two will maintain a presence in the capital – Sator in the Marais and Jocelyn Wolff in Belleville – and operate both at the same time. ‘Initially, I planned to keep the Paris space during the time of the move, since it’s such a complicated operation,’ says Wolff. He then shifts registers and adds, ‘[but] I’m sentimentally attached to the place where I developed the gallery. It’s a bit difficult to leave Belleville and my colleagues there. At the moment, I don’t have to choose.’ Wolff is also planning to explore the possibility of having exhibitions across both spaces, but insists that the gallery’s main operations will be in Romainville, and that he will bike over on the cycle path along the Canal de l’Ourcq every day.

The communal aspect of the project, with the Komunuma galleries next to each other, coordinating their openings and sharing spaces such as the rooftop (which will host an artwork from Frac’s collection,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/21349/Michel-Blazy" target="_blank">Michel Blazy</a>’s Bar à oranges (2009), during the opening), is a key part of the venue’s concept. Florence Bonnefous, the co-owner of Air de Paris, is doing this for the second time. In 1997, her gallery, along with several others, including big-hitters&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/1134/Perrotin" target="_blank">Perrotin&nbsp;</a>and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/gallery/1254/Almine-Rech" target="_blank">Almine Rech</a>, joined a collective of galleries that opened together on the Rue Louise Weiss in Paris’s 13th arrondissement. The neighborhood was then an off-the-beaten-path location that became synonymous with the rise of a young art scene in Paris at the turn of the 21st century. If not entirely successful, the Rue Louise Weiss venture nonetheless fostered a collaborative spirit that has endured. ‘I have the knowledge of putting together a project collectively,’ explains Bonnefous. ‘This is something that is extremely important to me, the notion of what is common to all of us here, and it’s something I’m extremely happy to work on again, with different people but based on the same ideas.’Also present on-site will be an international residency program sponsored by Groupe Fiminco’s philanthropic arm, Fondation Fiminco, through which 18 emerging artists will be invited to stay in Romainville for a year and offered to stage exhibitions in the Chaufferie. In addition, Jeune Création will organize shows in the same building the residency will occupy, and Frac is planning to open its collection to the public. Its director, Xavier Franceschi, explains that, while Frac’s focus will remain on the production of exhibitions in its 19th-arrondissement space, Le Plateau, its presence in Romainville will allow it to test a new kind of interaction with its audience. The idea is to use the space not only for the conservation and storage of the collection, but also to present artworks. ‘I insist on the term “presentation,” rather than “exhibition,”’ says Franceschi. ‘We will show the works as they are.’ The public will be able to choose works they want to see from the collection. ‘We will see how it works – maybe we’ll drown in requests, maybe there will be very few,’ says Franceschi. ‘It’s an experiment.’&nbsp;

Galerie Jocelyn Wolff and Air de Paris are both opening their spaces with group exhibitions. Wolff is sentimental about this new beginning – the show he is planning, ‘70.001’, is articulated around a work by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/15593/Clemens-von-Wedemeyer" target="_blank">Clemens von Wedemeyer</a>, who was the first artist Wolff showed when he opened the Belleville gallery, back in 2003. Air de Paris’ first exhibition in the new space will be titled ‘More’, and will feature all 40 artists the gallery represents. It’s an opportunity to let visitors see the whole space – the storage in the basement, the office (with desks designed by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/search?q=Aaron%20Flint%20Jamison" target="_blank">Aaron Flint Jamison</a>) on the ground floor, the two exhibition spaces, the kitchen, the rooftop – with works spread out across the place. The excitement of the new takes over the parting with the old. ‘I love making a new space,’ says Bonnefous. ‘I’m not sentimental – the memories, you bring with you, so what you leave is an empty shell.’ She is planning to install a neon work by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artist/9954/Fran%C3%A7ois-Curlet" target="_blank">François Curlet</a>&nbsp;on the building’s facade that reads ‘Spaghetti Conceptual Art.’ She laughs as she observes, ‘It could have been the title of the show.’Orit Gat is a writer based in London whose work on contemporary art and digital culture has appeared in a variety of magazines.Top image:&nbsp;Komunuma, partners, October 2019. Photo: &copy; Stephanie Füssenich. Courtesy Komunuma.

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