Large, a new contemporary art centre on Île Seguin in Boulogne-Billancourt, has opened to the public with "Imaginary Engine", an exhibition curated by Cecilia Alemani and presented in partnership with the Fonds Renault pour l'art et la culture. It runs from October 17, 2026 to March 7, 2027.
The centre is supported by the Emerige Group and run by a non-profit association whose president is the collector Laurent Dumas, with Paula Aisemberg as director. Its building was designed by RCR Arquitectes, the Catalan practice of Rafael Aranda, Carme Pigem and Ramon Vilalta, winners of the 2017 Pritzker Prize, with the agency CALQ; the main exhibition hall rises to 14 metres. According to the centre, its programme will set historical works, contemporary art and new commissions side by side and support artists by producing new work. Speaking to Art Basel Paris about the project, Dumas said that one has to know how to give back and how to share.
The opening show starts from the site itself: Île Seguin was once home to Renault's factories. Drawing on the Renault collection, the exhibition brings together more than a hundred works from the 1930s to the present by 55 artists from 23 countries, 17 of whom were invited to make new pieces. It is organised in five chapters on the relationship between people, industry and machines, with the car at its centre.
"Factory of My Thoughts" revisits Renault's late-1960s programme "Recherche, Art et Industrie", which opened the factory's materials and workforce to artists such as Jean Tinguely, Jean Dubuffet, Victor Vasarely and Julio Le Parc. "Driving Forces" treats the engine and the assembly line as images of 20th-century social systems, with new works by Bertrand Lavier and Zhenya Machneva alongside Peter Fischli & David Weiss and Thomas Bayrle. "Social Bodies" turns to the lives of workers, particularly women and migrants, with commissions from Clément Cogitore, Giulia Andreani and Mohamed El Khatib. "Objects of Desire" looks at the car as fetish and extension of the body, from Niki de Saint Phalle and Kenneth Anger to new pieces by Bianca Bondi and Oliver Beer. "The Human Machine" closes on the blurring line between people and machines, with commissions from Théo Mercier, Sara Sadik and Daniel Otero Torres.
Alemani, who has directed High Line Art in New York since 2011, was artistic director of the 59th Venice Biennale and has been appointed curator of the 15th Taipei Biennial in 2027.
