The château of Madame de Graffigny is emblematic of the Métropole du Grand Nancy.
The château of Madame de Graffigny is emblematic of the Métropole du Grand Nancy. Owned by Villers-lès-Nancy since the mid-1980s, it has always been intended to host activities linked to the creation and dissemination of culture. The park and the château were named after its famous owner, Françoise de Graffigny, an 18th-century woman of letters and friend of Voltaire. Since 2013, a gallery has presented exhibitions of local and international artists. The town now intends to rehabilitate the château to make it a place of culture open to all. Françoise de Graffigny is the author of the famous novel « Lettres d’une Péruvienne » (1747). She is one of the most important women in eighteenth-century literature and the first woman in France to gain her independence through writing. View of Ben Vautier’s exhibition Rien d’impossible, 2023, Château de Madame de Graffigny BEN ON BEN Reading Madame de Graffigny, I thought that “Lettres d’une Péruvienne” was the secret biography of her life and her fantasies, so I said to myself: “what if I made six canvases from sentences taken from her book?” So I write her this letter: DEAR MADAME DE GRAFFIGNY why did you ask me to come and exhibit in your home? DEAR MADAME DE GRAFFIGNY I read you with pleasure, I imagined you reading me, beautiful, naked and smiling Read more
