Forgiving Architecture

FRAC Lorraine celebrates its ten years with Gianni Pettena, who transforms this space by creating an airy installation that goes against the grain of centuries’ old, static architecture.

FRAC Lorraine chose Gianni Pettena to transform the space and its perception by creating an airy, mercurial installation that goes against the grain of centuries’ old, static architecture.

Gianni Pettena, whose work is at the crossroads of art and architecture, has never built much and claims that his only architecture project is his cabin on the island of Elba. As a principal figure of Italian Radical Architecture, Pettena spends more time thinking than laying bricks.

Top: G. Pettena, Forgiving Architecture, sketch for Frac Lorraine, Gianni Pettena Studio, 2014. 49 Nord 6 Est - Frac Lorraine Production © The artist. Above: G. Pettena, Forgiving Architecture, Biennial of Athena, 2009. © The artist

By proposing to hide the building that has housed FRAC Lorraine for the past ten years, Pettena’s gesture renews the poetics of the site’s inauguration. Hans Schabus’s labyrinth of white cardboard is still fresh in our memory as are the many performances in the form of a manifesto at the launching of FRAC. Since then, FRAC has not wavered from its goals: initiating new curatorial practices by inviting the audience to act and react; combining knowledge and sensory experiments; anticipating and explaining social, ecological, and philosophical changes…

Portrait of G. Pettena, Barcelone, 1992. Photo: Santi Caleca


From May 16 until June 09, 2014
Gianni Pettena
Forgiving Architecture

FRAC Lorraine
1 bis Rue de Trinitaires
Metz, France