Expositions printemps-été du Château d'Aubenas [Fermé temporairement]

The Château – Centre for Contemporary Art and Heritage in Aubenas unveils a new season this spring that explores the profound connections between stories, traces, and the imagination. From the potato, a driving force behind underground and popular histories, to the prison memory revealed by Nicolas Daubanes, these two new exhibitions weave a dialogue between past and present, between humble gestures and narrative visions. These exhibitions invite us to take a fresh look at our surroundings: materials, archives, mythologies, and everyday actions.

This new season thus opens a new chapter, guided by the desire to continue the mission of the Château: to welcome artists, to support audiences and to make the place a living, caring space deeply rooted in its territory.

Artist details:
– Exhibition “POTATOES”
Non-final list of artists: Pilar Albarracín, Alice Allenet, Ziad Antar, Michel Blazy, Mégane Brauer, Lucas Chanoine, Elia David, Aurélie Ferruel and Florentine Guédon, Valerie Geissbühler Pacheco, Alain Guiraudie, HaYoung, Jacqueline de Jong, Raphaël-Bachir Osman, Serge Paillard, Giuseppe Penone, Sigmar Polke,
Bruno Serralongue, Shimabuku, SMITH, Rozy Tergemina Sapelkine, Agnès Varda…

Potatoes is a contemporary art exhibition that brings together the work of artists from different generations and nationalities, all united by a love of the potato. Behind this tuber from the Andes, whose first specimens are believed to have been cultivated in the Ardèche region of France, lies a multitude of stories: tales of survival, migration, struggling to make ends meet, and damaged land. But the potato also represents the joy of shared meals and the forms of resistance that run underground before...
to germinate into works of art.
Spread across two floors of the Château, the exhibition is accompanied by a program combining performances and tastings, linked to the territory and beyond.

Curators: Simon Bruneel-Millon and Clémentine Planche

– Exhibition “ONE THOUSAND SIX HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-SEVEN” by Nicolas DAUBANES:

The Château invites artist Nicolas Daubanes for an exhibition conceived as the first chapter of a research project on the prison graffiti preserved in its cellars. The title, One Thousand Six Hundred Seventy-Seven, refers to the date of the oldest graffiti currently identified in the Château, the starting point for a sensitive and historical investigation.

Guided by his enduring interest in spaces of constraint, zones of resistance, and forms of clandestine writing, Nicolas Daubanes develops an approach that intertwines contemporary creation, prison history, and the exploration of built structures. The exhibition will present several series of works already produced by the artist—notably within the framework of research and residencies (Villa Medici, etc.)—juxtaposed with inscriptions engraved in the stone of the Château, in order to resonate with narratives, gestures, and traces across time.

By combining contemporary creations with archives engraved in stone, it offers a fresh perspective on this unique heritage. Conducted in partnership with researcher Fanny Lalande, this project launches an original program blending art, humanities, and heritage, transforming the Château into a place of study, creation, and storytelling.

Curators: Jean-Denis Frater and Fanny Lalande