I don’t know Raymonde Morin, I don’t know Bernard Fournier, I don’t know Jean-Marc Gébelin not yet either Françoise Simont. These four are strangers to me, yet not to each other as in the year written one nine eight six, read as nineteen eighty-six they decided to create the association art3, decided to voluntarily exercise their interest in art gratuitously and to offer their time gratuitously to the artists to the works of the artists to the public who encountered the works and the artists favored by the free time offered by the founders of art3.
In the year written one nine eight nine and read nineteen eighty-nine, art3 opened in Valence (twenty six1), a space with the surface written one five zero zero and read fifteen hundred, understood as square meters, whilst I finished my graphic design studies in Paris.
In the industrial building rue Denis Papin near and behind the train station is where young artists were exhibited and also helped by art3 in the creation the production the dissemination of not only their work but also of contemporary art in general. I never saw this site.
This space whose surface was already mentioned read and written included five studio spaces for young regional artists — the region Rhône-Alpes in the year written one nine eight nine — an exhibition space and two studios to welcome European and non-European artists or rather international artists linked to the exchange programmes in the regions of Bade Wurtemberg (Germany), Catalonia (Spain) and Lombardy (Italy).
Thanks to art3, artists exchanged inter-regionally — often in collaboration with the Valence museum and art school — art3 becoming in time and space the place of a short exhibition for the artists, often accompanied by a publication or a multiple.
From the year read nineteen ninety-seven to the year still read nineteen ninety-nine, art3 recruited for a part-time position and salary as well, delegating the direction to Corinne Gambi, then in the year written one nine nine nine Valerie Cudel replaced Corinne Gambi, and moved art3 from rue Denis Papin near and behind the station to eight rue Sabaterie — the first and last address that I knew and the last address that art3 occupied — in the heart of this old city, with a surface of two hundred square meters with one full-time salaried position. This newer smaller space still nevertheless offered one exhibition space and one studio for the artists in residency. If financial support for creation, production and distribution remained decisive, a more developed and identified editorial policy was the object of Valérie Cudel's acute attention.
New partnerships were developed and Sylvie Vojik joined art3 as director in the year two zero zero nine when Valérie Cudel left. It was at this time that I was invited by the artist in residency Philip Metz to organise an event.
art3 is was a place of creation, production and dissemination of contemporary art, a space that accompanied more than five hundred artists, whose names I am not able to mention due to the four thousand characters allotted to me; nor can I mention the number of works that art3 produced in this limitation, which amounts to two zero zero.
In December of the year read two-thousand two and after three years of considering the possible relocation to another space in the city centre — the Bourse du Travail (Trade Union Centre) — the city announced that it was abandoning the project, maintaining the management of it.
Other situations occurred, such as the withdrawal of several partners — the Region, the Drac — which now inhibits art3 to continue its activity with the sole annual support of the city for the sum of ten thousand euros, nor the activity of its director Sylvie Vojik, the sole full time employee required for the project, a programming whose exiguity of a tiled exhibition surface — and of the allocated means — became its identity, a programming that will have left its mark by the unwavering commitment of the people involved, to the point of exhaustion.
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