Commuters travelling around Paris on a new train network in years to come will find major contemporary works of art at every station. The Grand Paris Express, a €24.9bn rapid transit train service, which will improve transport in the greater urban region, is due to be completed by 2030. Each of the 68 new stations will feature a site-specific commission.
The artistic director of the transport network, José-Manuel Gonçalvès, is now matching artists with the 37 architects chosen to design the stations. The first ten collaborations, announced last month, include the Arte Povera artist Michelangelo Pistoletto with the French architect Thomas Richez for the Champigny Centre station in Champigny-sur-Marne, scheduled to open in 2019.
Pistoletto’s work will question the current meaning of “resistance”, said Gonçalvès; a museum that tells the story of the French Resistance during the Second World War is located nearby. Other pairings include the artist Laurent Grasso with the architect David Trottin, both French, for the Châtillon station in Montrouge, and the Belgian artist Ann Veronica Janssens with the French architect Cyril Trétout for the Saint-Maur station in Créteil.
The Grand Paris Express is also commissioning its own collection of “nomadic works”, installations created for display in stations throughout the construction process. Two new commissions by the French designer Ramy Fischler and the French artist Céleste Boursier-Mougenot, planned for 2017-18, will join two works commissioned last year from the Spanish artist Pablo Valbuena and the German artist Tobias Rehberger with the French DJ Thylacine.
The public agency overseeing the Grand Paris Express, the Société Grand Paris, will dedicate €1.6m in funding per year for the arts commissions and cultural community events during construction—around 0.1% of its total 15-year budget. A campaign that aims to raise matching private funding for an independently administered endowment has also been launched.
