Tribute to Christian Bernard

By Anne Dary, director of Frac Rhône-Alpes from 1983 to 1986

Christian Bernard changed my life. Indeed, he was part of the jury for the direction of the Frac Rhône-Alpes where I presented myself at the end of 1982. We didn’t know then. We worked together in Lyon for 3 years, to build the foundation of the collection of the FRAC, present it in the most diverse places in the region, visit the artists' workshops, meet the actors of artistic creation; such was our daily life, it was exciting, and he taught me everything.
What I particularly liked about him was his relationship with artists, defending them over a long period of time, through personal or collective exhibitions, festivals and acquisitions. His way of looking at the works and showing them was totally original.
After Lyon, we continued to meet with my partner, Etienne Bossut, because he showed it faithfully both in Nice and in Geneva. We regularly went to openings at MAMCO, parties for intelligence, eyes and meetings! MAMCO’s exhibitions were for me a visual food, with always new discoveries, surprising displays that renewed the gaze on the works.
Thank you, Christian, for all these wonderful years, we will miss you.

by Marie-Claude Jeune, director of l’ELAC (Espace lyonnais d’art contemporain) from 1978 to 1986 the Advisor for the visual arts at the Drac Rhône-Alpes

It was in 1982 that Christian Bernard arrived in Rhône-Alpes at the Regional Directorate of Cultural Affairs. He is part of this first wave of artistic advisors who, through their commitments, training, dynamism and varied professional background, are recruited by the Lang government to implement an ambitious policy of cultural decentralization.There is a rich region of two museums, one in Saint-Étienne and the other in Grenoble; in this area, Lyon remains a traditional and hushed city. Christian then launches, body and soul, to the assault of this nascent cultural landscape, and, in less than 4 years, makes Rhône-Alpes an "exemplary" region, endowed, among other things, with structures dedicated to contemporary art still active today. Particularly appreciated by artists for the way it looks at their work and the desire to support their early career, it encourages some galleries in Lyon to come out of the shadows and engage, among other things, in a programming more attentive to emerging artists.

Aware of the need to implement a cultural policy in close consultation with elected officials, he established multiple contacts that the installation, in a few weeks, of the Regional Fund for Contemporary Art, will consolidate. The establishment of the FRAC Rhône-Alpes is, in itself, a great event since Christian immediately sets the bar very high... He knows how to win the trust of the regional elected official who will become the president of the structure and establishes an ambitious acquisition policy that a committee, made up of collectors and amateurs particularly concerned with contemporary art, undertakes to carry out.

Succeeding him at the beginning of 86, following his advice to apply for a position, was a real challenge for me... I tried, as much as possible, to respect the path he had set. The opportunity was given to me to make him find this FRAC in which he had been so intensely involved, by offering him to direct the publication of the catalog of acquisitions. The FRAC entrusted him with an assistant, fresh out of his university studies in art history, who was responsible for gathering all the necessary documents for publishing; a work carried out with great skill by Valérie Mavridorakis who became his wife and accompanied him to the end.

The participation on 29 April of Christian Bernard, in a video-conference from his hospital room, at the round table organized by the MAC to celebrate 50 years of contemporary art in Lyon, will long be remembered, as a magnificent and courageous testimony of what was a life dedicated to contemporary art, to its transmission and dissemination. A good example for the younger generations...