PARIS— Launched in 2006 by then French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, La Force de l’Art is a triennial art exhibition organized under the aegis of France’s Culture Ministry to showcase contemporary French output. While the triennial’s first edition was hurriedly put together in just six months, this second show should be a more measured event, with a full three years having been available for its preparation. And where, in 2006, 15 curators were asked to make individual selections, the 2009 edition has been put together by a team of only three: Jean-Louis Froment, founder of the influential CAPC Musée d’Art Contemporain in Bordeaux, which he ran from 1973 to 1996; the writer and art critic Jean-Yves Jouannais; and Didier Ottinger, a senior curator at the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

Like the 2006 edition, La Force de l’Art 2009 (running April 24 to June 1) will be held in Paris’s Grand Palais, a gigantic, glass-roofed exhibition space built for the 1900 Exposition Universelle. The Grand Palais can be a difficult location in which to exhibit art, both its size and dominant architecture threatening to overwhelm works shown. For this reason, the curators asked architect Philippe Rahm to design a setting for them: he came up with what he calls “white geology,” a 160 by 25 meter (525 by 82 feet) white bar that is “deformed, hollowed out, or swollen” by the “forces” of the individual artworks placed within it.

The three curators set out to reflect the up-and-coming French “scene,” and consequently included foreign artists who live and work in France and French-born creators based outside the country. They also asked a handful of established French artists to create works at Parisian landmarks of their choosing, such as the Eiffel Tower or the Louvre. Furthermore, numerous “guest” artists have been asked to contribute events and performances at the Grand Palais.

On the eve of the show’s opening, ARTINFO asked co-curator Didier Ottinger to tell us more about it.

How does this year’s event differ from the first Force de l’Art three years ago?

There are many differences, but the major one is that the first Force de l’Art was planned as a survey of the French situation in contemporary art, with 350 participating artists; for this second edition we decided to offer as much space and freedom as possible to each of the artists we selected, which means that in comparison with the first edition we have quite a short list: Inside the Grand Palais itself there will be only — if we can say “only” — 33 exhibiting artists.

Why is there a need for this kind of event?

There has been a need for a long time, which has been expressed over the past couple of years by curators, the artists themselves, and certain politicians, too. We have to be honest: Many people think that French art is under-represented in France itself. I worked for a year as a guest curator at MoMA in New York. I asked my fellow curators there: “How come there are so few French artists in your galleries and programs?” And the answer was always: “Why should we exhibit French artists when museums in France don’t?”

Why do you think France has this problem?

There are many reasons, but one important one is that since the French Revolution, France has thought of itself as universal. People think it’s a pity to consider any question from just a national point of view. So if you look at the exhibitions and acquisition policy in a place like the Centre Pompidou, it’s used to being international, and it’s always been considered very pejorative to talk about “French artists.” You say, “Is it part of the international scene or not?” But if you want to be part of this international scene, sometimes you have to promote yourself as a national product.

Do you think there has been a significant change in the direction of French art over the past three years? How would you describe the current trends?

I think current trends started well before the first edition of the Force de l’Art, but something has changed quite radically: There is a new generation of artists who are more international and open minded. If you see the list of artists [in the triennial], many of them are living in Berlin, and some are from China (Wang Du), from Ireland (James Coleman), from Romania (Mircea Cantor), and so on. This was not the case on the French scene 10 years ago.

How did you go about choosing works to be featured in the event?

Since there are three of us who didn’t know each other before — I’d met Jean-Louis Froment only once, 20 years ago, and Jean-Yves Jouannais 10 years ago — we started by each putting forward the artists we’d worked with for a long time. We then decided that every artist had to be approved by all three of us — if just one of us disagreed, the artist was dropped from the list. Once you have this core — let’s say six or seven, no more — you start to make a real exhibition. You then have to build a route through the exhibition, introduce movement, alternate intensity and intimacy. With a huge space like the Grand Palais, you need pieces that work at that scale but also others which require a more intimate, meditative space.

Can you say a little about some of the artworks? Which are your favorites, and why?

For me, what was for a long time the most interesting and perhaps key work in the show is no longer part of the exhibition [though another work by the artist is included]. It was the very first one we chose, a piece by Gilles Barbier called Le Terrier (The Burrow), after the short story by Kafka whose subject is an animal digging labyrinths under the earth, and who is always anxious about the world outside, always thinking there’s a bigger animal than him ready to eat him! At the end of the story you realize that perhaps the animal was actually an artist, or just an ordinary man, and the place where he was digging was his mind.

Barbier’s work is quite emblematic of many of the pieces in the show. Some of them feature evocations of home or of ideal places for making art — some of them literally feature studio spaces — and each one seems threatened by a force that is not clearly identified but could be a danger for art itself. I think the general meaning of the exhibition could in fact be a representation of the situation of art at a particular moment in time.

Do you feel that art is in danger?

I think it is, in a way, because it has never been so loved by society. Every single element of society expects to use art for its own purpose: advertisers, luxury industries.... Any kind of industry is willing to get artists to showcase their products; politicians expect to be able to build their own museums of contemporary art. Everybody is courting artists, and while on the one hand it’s nice for them, it could also be a danger because it’s a restriction on the freedom of the arts.

Do you think art was ever free?

I think it was freer when it was in a kind of opposition to society, in the period we now call the avant-garde, when groups of artists who thought they were in advance announced what the future might be — Futurism and so on.

How can art resist?

By hiding, by having a kind of double role, like the Trojan horse. I think many of the works in the show seem to offer something clean and seductive but in fact have something more complex and disturbing underneath.

Could you say a little about Philippe Rahm’s “white geology”?

We were conscious that you have to provide resistance to the power and strength of the huge space of the Grand Palais — you have to build something in order not to be lost in or destroyed by it — so we decided that architecture should be the solution. But all too often nowadays, architecture restrains the power and the freedom of works of art. We wanted to avoid this. So rather than devising a projection of an ideal space, Philippe Rahm tried to figure out how the power of each work could determine its own habitat, its own burrow, like an animal pushing the wall to build its own space.

An event of this nature, organized under the aegis of a government ministry, inevitably ends up having a certain political aspect to it. In what ways would you say this year’s Force de l’Art might have been influenced by considerations other than the purely artistic?

I can honestly say that we were never under the pressure or solicitation of political power. I know that for many people outside France, the fact that this event was supported by the government, by politicians, is suspicious. But we worked in the freest way you can imagine.

Who appointed the three of you?

The culture minister at the time, Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres. It was strange, because I never expected to be chosen with these guys.

What do you think motivated your appointment? Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that the three of you are considered fairly maverick?

Yes, in the first interview he gave about the Force de l’Art, Olivier Kaeppelin, who is in charge of the event at the Ministry of Culture, referred to three of us as “francs-tireurs,” which means “maverick” in a way. This was the official voice of the ministry.

Do you recognize yourself in that description?

I think so, yes. And I think all three of us would be pleased with the description, because the list of works we selected and the way we are exhibiting them is unusual.

You’ve also commissioned some well-known artists to create pieces elsewhere in Paris during the event. Can you tell us about that?

The list comprises some of the most famous artists on the French scene: Bertrand Lavier, Annette Messager, ORLAN, Pierre & Gilles — another generation in a way. We wanted to honor these artists but were conscious that they don’t need yet another group exhibition — they already have ample recognition. So we said to them, “It could be interesting for you to do something you’ve never done before. What are your dreams?” And Lavier, who is a very clever and funny guy, said, “Oh, I want to disrupt the lighting of the Eiffel Tower,” so we said, “OK, let’s go!” And I said to Annette Messager, “Is there a place related to your intimate dreams where you’d like to work?” And she said, “Yes, when I was a kid I used to go to Le Planétarium, which is a mythical place for me.” She ended up making something there. As for Pierre & Gilles, they had been dreaming of making a chapel in a real church for years, and we managed to organize it for them. It’s a way of collaborating with artists on another level.

If I understood correctly, one of your aims for this year’s Force de l’Art is to make contemporary art accessible to sectors of the public who might be put off by something perceived as “difficult.” How do you hope to achieve this?

There was a series of exhibitions held in the Grand Palais that was very interesting for us, called “Les Monumenta.” We visited the first exhibition, which was devoted to Anselm Kiefer, many times, and we were struck by the way the public enjoyed going from large open spaces to enclosed spaces built by Kiefer to encourage concentrated meditation and appreciation of the works. This idea that you have to lead the public and provide a kind of parcours-promenade was something we had in mind. It will be a rich experience for people walking from one type of space to another, one type of work to another.

How much does it cost to stage an event like this?

The general budget is a little over €4 million. But the space itself has no electricity, there is no lighting or anything, so doing a show there is more expensive than doing it in a museum. But that is also why it’s interesting.

There’s a mix of private sponsorship and public money — do you know roughly what the percentages are?

Around 30 percent is private sponsorship. We were expecting more, but it was difficult because of the crisis. In the end we received more technical and material help than cash — for example, one company provided all the wood needed to build the architecture.

What has your involvement in the Force de l’Art brought to you personally?

The demonstration that it’s more interesting to work with several people than alone. It was a great benefit for me to learn about these two other guys, and I hope it was the same for them.