General Director of the Picasso-Paris National Museum since 2022, Sabine Longin will take charge of the Lyon Biennale from June 1. At his side, Isabelle Bertolotti (director of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Lyon) and Tiago Guedes (director of the Maison de la danse de Lyon), who have co-directed the event since 2020 for the first and 2022 for the second, will respectively ensure the artistic direction of the Contemporary Art Biennale and the Dance Biennale.
It is a return to familiar territory for Sabine Longin (54 years old) who began her career as artistic coordinator of the Biennale at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Lyon from 1994 to 1996. She was then a consultant at the agency of cultural communication Heymann Renoult Associés, before managing the consulting firm D&C for thirteen years (2000-2013).
She pursued a diplomatic career by joining the French Embassy in Qatar in 2013. She held the position of cultural attaché there for three years, collaborating in particular on the implementation of a joint Franco-Qatari cultural committee. She returned briefly in 2021, this time as cooperation and cultural action advisor.
Between 2016 and 2021, Sabine Longin worked at the Giacometti Foundation as director of development and international relations then as general secretary. She then assisted director Catherine Grenier in setting up the Giacometti Institute in the former workshop of cabinetmaker Paul Follot (14th arrondissement of Paris).
Since 2022, Sabine Longin has been the general director of the Musée national Picasso-Paris. Alongside museum president Cécile Debray, she created the Académie des beaux-arts Foundation which supports the museum in its activities and missions. She also followed the “Picasso Celebration 1973-2023”a series of events organized in France and internationally on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the artist's death.
Member of the board of directors of the Biennale since 2022, she will take over as general director in June. Under his leadership, “ the Biennale will develop its international influence and an ambitious partnership policy » indicated those responsible for the demonstration in a press release. “It will extend its territorial roots and implement new accessibility measures for all audiences”.
The 17th edition of the Lyon Contemporary Art Biennale will take place from September 21, 2024 to January 5, 2025. It will invest for the first time in Les Grandes Locos, former SNCF buildings in the south of Lyon converted to host events cultural. More than sixty artists will come together around the theme “The voices of the rivers, Crossing the water”, which questions the relationship of being to its environment. The 21st edition of the Dance Biennale is scheduled for September 2025.
