Alun
Williams

For over thirty years, Alun Williams has invested much time and energy in setting up and running non-profit organizations, especially those that offer artists the time, space and conditions needed for them to pursue their research.
Thus, in 1992, he was the founder, with Isabelle Viallat, of La Vigie in Nîmes, and in 1993 he became a member of the Board of Directors of the Triangle Arts Association in New York of which he is currently co-Chair. In 1995 he was co-founder of Triangle France in Marseille and worked at the Friche Belle de Mai. From 1998 he has shared his time between France and New York, where he was founder of Parker’s Box (2000 to 2013), an experimental gallery in the artist-run-space section of Brooklyn. In 2012 he worked on launching Minoterie21, an association in Morbihan, Brittany. This initiative organizes different contemporary art projects, as well as a modest program of artists’ residencies following different formulae. Alun Williams is a member of the Board of the Art Contemporain en Bretagne network, as well as that of the Triangle Canada association in Montreal, Quebec.

Triangle-Astérides is a “contemporary art center of national interest” – the result of the merging in 2018 of two non-profit associations, Astérides and Triangle-France. The two associations were both resident members of the Friche Belle de Mai cultural cooperative located in a former government tobacco factory in Marseille, and which today remains the home of the current association. Under the leadership of Alun Williams, accompanied by Claire Lesteven and with help from local collaborators including Bernard Plasse, director of the Galerie du Tableau, and Marie-Pierre Bouly, Triangle-France was officially constituted in November 1994. In parallel, the Astérides association was established in 1992 by artists, Gilles Barbier, Claire Maugeais, Jean-Christophe Nourisson and Sandrine Raquin.
Triangle-Astérides is a member of the international Triangle Network, and through this is linked to the Triangle Arts Association in New York (see separate entry).
Triangle-Astérides develops a rigorous program of exhibitions and research and experimentation residencies for artists from the French and international art scenes, along with a program for local artists and professionals in conjunction with the Artists’ Studios of the City of Marseille, as well as the organization of events and publishing projects.
In the summer of 2021, Triangle-Astérides was granted the status of Contemporary art center of national interest. In his capacity as President of Honor, Alun Williams was present in Marseille for the official declaration by the Minister of Culture, Roselyne Bachelot.

Triangle France

Alun Williams was invited to join the Board of Directors of the Triangle Arts Association in 1993, following his participation in the Triangle Artists’ Workshop of the same year. Today he remains one of two co-chairs of the Board with artist, Jennifer Riley.
In 1982, the British artist, Anthony Caro and the collector, Robert Loder create the Triangle Arts Trust (identified today as the Triangle Network). In the summer of that year, they organized an artists’ workshop in upstate New York, bringing together 25 emerging artists from the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. The goal of this workshop was to create a space for dialogue and the exchange of ideas between artists. Following the success of this inaugural edition, the geographical reach of the event spread, and subsequent workshops included the participation of artists from further and further afield. On their own initiative, a number of artists who participated in a New York workshop, reproduce the same formula in their countries of origin. As a result, the Triangle Network today includes numerous non-profit structures in forty countries across the world and in every continent. In 1994, when the Triangle Arts Trust lost the use of its original workshop venue, the British artist, Alun Williams, a Triangle Board member in New York, looked into the possibility of organizing a Triangle workshop in Marseille, hosted by the Art School there, where he taught at that time. Following this event, held in the summer of 1995, the opportunity arose of creating a residency and exhibition program under the Triangle-France name and association, which had been created to administer the workshop (see separate entry).
The Triangle Arts Association in New York began its activities in the countryside of upstate New York in 1982. By 1998 it had moved to the 92nd floor of the World Trade Center in Manahattan, establishing the highest artists’ studios in New York City. In 2002, having lost this venue, the association was provided space in Dumbo, one of the most active cultural neighborhoods of Brooklyn. A new year-round artists’ residency program was subsequently launched here, partly based on the residency established in Marseille. Dumbo remains home to Triangle in New York to this day.

Triangle Arts association

In 1992, Alun Williams is co-founder with Isabelle Simonou-Viallat of La Vigie – Contemporary Art, an artist-run space notably organizing exhibitions in a series of small former apartments throughout four floors of an old postal relay station in Nîmes. Isabelle Simonou-Viallat remained director of the structure until its closure in 2021. In 2012 Alun Williams curated a special exhibition in celebration of twenty years of activity. The exhibition presented the work of Sarah Tritz, Philippe Nuell, Ophir Agassi, Jason Glasser and Yann Gerstberger. Ophir Agassi also presented a performance piece for the opening night.

La vigie