Actualité ·
The Large art centre opens on the Île Seguin, former Renault site
The Large art centre, run by an association chaired by Laurent Dumas, president of the property group Emerige, opens on Saturday 17 October 2026 on the Île Seguin, in Boulogne-Billancourt. Its inaugural exhibition, "Imaginary Engine", draws on the Renault collection.
Par la rédaction Walensky · 4 min de lecture
- 120works brought together in the inaugural exhibition
- 5,000m² in total for the six-storey building
- 17new commissions from contemporary artists
Large, a contemporary art centre, opens on Saturday 17 October 2026 on the Île Seguin, in Boulogne-Billancourt, in the Hauts-de-Seine. The venue occupies the former Renault factory site, and its opening takes place during the contemporary art week of Art Basel Paris. Its inaugural exhibition is titled Imaginary Engine.
A non-profit association runs Large: it is chaired by Laurent Dumas, president of the Emerige group, and directed by Paula Aisemberg. It is neither a foundation nor a private museum of the kind run by the Cartier or Louis Vuitton foundations: the centre has no dedicated collection. It focuses on public access and the promotion of the French scene.
"The French art scene is particularly exciting. We want to support it, promote it and make it accessible to the general public."
Paula Aisemberg, director of Large (remarks translated from English)
According to Paula Aisemberg, the priority given to artists living and working in France, regardless of nationality, will set Large apart. According to Laurent Dumas, the name reflects a desire to open up to the widest possible audience, including people who rarely engage with culture.
A building at the heart of the Pointe des Arts
Chez WalenskyStructures dorées aux anneauxTableau Walenskyà partir de 273,90 €
Voir le tableau →
Large is the heart of a district named the Pointe des Arts, designed by the Spanish firm RCR Arquitectes with the Parisian firm CALQ. The Catalan architects of RCR, Pritzker Prize laureates in 2017, are also the authors of the Musée Soulages in Rodez. Three buildings combine Corten steel, copper-tinted aluminium scales and glass, and also house an eight-screen cinema, shops and offices.
The Large building has six storeys and takes the form of a corner. It offers 5,000 m² in total, half of which is used for the two exhibitions presented each year. The entrance atrium, whose tiered seating evokes an agora, covers 370 m². The largest exhibition hall measures 1,000 m², under a height of seven to fourteen metres. A bookshop occupies the ground floor and a coffee shop the fourth floor, with views of the Seine.
"Imaginary Engine": the car as seen by artists
Curated by Cecilia Alemani, an Italian-New Yorker curator and former curator of a Venice Biennale, this is her first project in France. The exhibition brings together 120 works across five chapters. Works from the Renault Fund for Art and Culture engage in dialogue with 17 new commissions from contemporary artists. The Renault collection comprises more than 300 works and 200 photographs.
According to Cecilia Alemani, the automobile is to our era what the Gothic cathedrals were to the Middle Ages. Cecilia Alemani wants to make the exhibition a production site and an experimental laboratory.
Chez WalenskyMécanisme industrielTableau Walenskyà partir de 273,90 €
Voir le tableau →
The first chapter, Factory of My Thoughts, traces the history of the collection: it features a frieze by Julio Le Parc for the company canteen, machines by Jean Tinguely and figures by Jean Dubuffet. Thanks to Renault, Dubuffet used polyester, polystyrene, polyurethane paint and epoxy to complete L'Hourloupe.
The following chapters notably bring together works by Arman, the film The Way Things Go by Fischli & Weiss, and commissions from Clément Cogitore, Giulia Andreani and Mohamed El Khatib. Mohamed El Khatib presents an R12 overloaded with suitcases, referring to the summer return home of North African factory workers. On the top floor, Sunrise/Sunset by Madeline Hollander synchronises 96 car lights with the rotation of the earth.
Renault and artists, a long history
The dialogue between Renault and artists dates back to the 1930s, explains Catherine Gros, director of the Renault Foundation. Robert Doisneau was hired by Louis Renault at the age of 22, serving as a travelling photographer from 1934 to 1939. In the 1960s, Claude-Louis Renard persuaded chairman Pierre Dreyfus to open the factory to artists. Between 1967 and 1986, Dubuffet, Vasarely, Tinguely, Arman or Rauschenberg benefited from it, before Georges Besse ended this policy in 1986.
Chez WalenskyÉchappée colonialeTableau Walenskyà partir de 228,90 €
Voir le tableau →
For Laurent Dumas, the exhibition pays tribute to the history of the factories and to the workers who laboured there, sometimes under hard conditions. Jean-Dominique Senard, chairman of Renault, recalls that millions of vehicles left the island, one every 90 seconds.
Our view
Seeing a production site become an art venue reminds us that works often arise from the material and everyday gestures of making. At home, you can look at a painting wondering what it is made of and how it was made, as much as what it depicts.
Sources: Beaux Arts, The Art Newspaper.
