While the opening took place on Thursday June 4, 2026, the contemporary art center is launching its third exhibition in the former premises of the Banque de France, but also elsewhere, in different cultural places in downtown Carcassonne.
Thursday June 4, the new Pop-Up Collections exhibition was inaugurated at the contemporary art center of Carcassonne, open in spring 2025. A cultural event which had been presented during the previous mandate, in municipal council, by the former various right-wing mayor, Gérard Larrat.
From June 5 to October 17, 2026, five locations in Carcassonne will host contemporary works: the Museum of Fine Arts, the art center, the Dominican chapel, the Petit-Saint-Gimer chapel as well as the grain market.
For this exhibition, the former municipality worked in particular with the Regional Funds for Contemporary Art of Occitanie (Frac) in Montpellier, but also with that of the Abattoirs museum in Toulouse, making it possible to exhibit very different works, never seen in the Carcassonne landscape.
Dive into the past and present
So, The Independent carried out a majority of the route of this new exhibition. First, go to the Museum of Fine Arts, where you can discover a mix of different artistic universes. We can find the portrait of Madame Nicolas de Poulhariez created by Jacques Raoux next to contemporary works. An opportunity to mix the eras.
One of the rooms of this museum is completely dedicated to the temporary exhibition in which we find photographs or a work composed of books by the artist Acaymo S. Cuesta.
More than fifty artists exhibited
Further on, go to the premises of the former Banque de France which has currently hosted the contemporary art center for over a year. We discover numerous creations by very different artists, in particular the images of Delphine Balley which dramatize life sketches or family moments. But also photographs by Fiorenza Menini who develops the link between image and story, photographs and texts.
In total, more than fifty artists are exhibiting as part of this new exhibition at the contemporary art center. Some of them have also installed their work in other places in the town. This is particularly the case at the Dominican Chapel where we discover four life-size statues of soldiers from the Republican Guard. Behind these immense statues, we find the artist Xavier Veilhan who has been developing a polymorphic practice made mainly of sculptures since the 1990s.
On the Petit-Saint-Gimer chapel side, educational projects from different establishments in Aude are presented. These are the Simone Veil and André Chénier colleges, the Jules Fil high school and the USSAP de Limoux. During the year, they worked on the theme “History and stories”.
Another place that hosts works: the grain market, Place Eggenfelden. Unoccupied for several years, the old media library also houses statues of Sime Decker. These have the particularity of becoming fluorescent once night falls.
As a reminder, the “Pop-Up Collections” exhibition is the third to be hosted at the contemporary art center. As with the previous ones, it is free.
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