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Of the 24 Fonds Régional d'Art Contemporain (regional contemporary art collections or FRAC) in France, Carquefou in the Loire valley is the only one with a building that was constructed specifically for art-displaying purposes. Now the collection is celebrating 10 years in its home, which was designed by Jean-Claude Pondevie. To fete this milestone, a two-fold exhibition has been organized in a pair of towns, Carquefou and Nantes.

"Le Sourire du Chat" ("The Cat’s Smile") — the title is a sly reference to Lewis Carrolls Cheshire Cat and its magical disembodied grin — is an ambitious artistic undertaking that questions the limits of painting and representation. As the show’s press release puts it, "painting has become 'plural,'" with a new set of tools and materials that allow it to go beyond the canvas onto floor, wall, or ceiling.

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The artists shown in the Carquefou FRAC continue the abstract experiments of the early 20th century. With an explosion of different media (photography, video, and installation), these artists have taken the minimalist geometrical shapes of abstraction in a more emotional direction, emphasizing explorations of color, rhythm, and material.

Jean-Pierre Bertrand has created what seems from a distance to be geometric paintings, but which are actually combinations of various elements — including honey, salt, paper, and iron — pressed between two plexiglass plates. These paradoxical still-lifes are in a state of constant transformation as they go through a process of unstable chemical reaction. Evoking a different kind of chemistry, Mona Hatoum displays two glass swings that are a clever nod to the playful swinging of Fragonards lovers.

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In Nantes, the Hangar à Bananes — a huge industrial building that once sheltered commercial shipping boats — provides an unusual backdrop for the monochromatic works of Bruno Peinado. His colorful rectangles of gleaming metal are purposefully dented, suggesting either the random nature of accidents or the artist’s physical contact with his material. In a similar experimental spirit, Stéphane Dafflons wall paintings are designed on a computer with special software, allowing them to be adapted to any exhibition space, since they are displayed without frames, directly on the walls.