centre d'art 24

ON THE PENULTIMATE DAY OF APRIL '24, in the hope that the predicted week of rain doesn’t dampen matters right from the start, we act upon an undertaking we have made to our guest, who has expressed an aspiration to revisit the abandoned Crestet Arts Centre. The day is grey and overcast, there has been a lot of overnight rain, but it holds off for this inspection. Our guest, just arrived from the UK via Paris, was intrigued by the building when we brought her to Crestet before and, in particular, the sounds of the quasi-conference seeping out of the Centre d'Art, where no conference, lecture or event had taken place for many years.

Mme Melling and self have passed by the centre since then, (you’ll be familiar with my post on this place that I submitted to my public last year, of course… if not, this entry isn’t going to make much sense to you…here's a link, so you can make amends) but this time we ignore the surveillance warnings and the additional security cameras that are apparent on the shell of the building and follow the rough track right down to the building itself and its immediate environs..

The decay continues. It is gathering pace. Now we discover the massive stone sculptures by François Stahly that have been in place, round the back by the little amphitheatre, ever since we first turned up here in the 1990s… have gone. There's just a blank slab of concreted ground there now. In fact, all the residual works of art have seemingly been removed since we last mooched through the grounds, (we can’t vouch for the land art that is [or was] to be found in the adjoining woodlands; that might very well be still there, we must go and see). Just the ‘brutalist’ building holds on but with each season is succumbing more. I’d like to have seen those mighty stone works being relocated, it must have been some undertaking. Where are they now? 

So: some windows have been boarded up, the subsidiary building further up the road (was that the caretaker’s place?) is losing its tiled roof and is already seemingly wrecked beyond economic repair. The lower property associated with the centre, closer to Crestet, that has been revitalised and is occupied as a rather fine but conventional domestic home.

The thyme is in full flower and much else besides. The centre that sits among the holm oaks remains: mostly intact but in an ever more sorrowful state, reflected perfectly by the grey light and threatening rain. Another step towards total ruin. 

The undertaking to take our guest to Arles is reneged upon due to the weather during her week with us. I hope we may have at least given some redress by this and other explorations we make, of a more local nature, in what is going to prove to be one of our wettest weeks at 1rueFB. 

Mme Melling brings this reverie to an end with the news that the Crestet-Centre-d’Art was sold to an unknown buyer in 2023. Once again I am brought up short by the blasted interwebyoulike. 

We are not the only souls sobered by the centre: here is a link to what we know: a link!