Centre national édition art image, Contemporary art research center in Chatou, France
The cneai = occupies the Maison Levanneur in the Hameau Fournaise on the Île des Impressionnistes at Chatou. The former house holds exhibition rooms, a video lounge and a conference room, extended by a building with a large-format intaglio press made for the site, children's presses and a reserve. In 2011 architects Élisabeth Lemercier and Philippe Bona redesigned the interiors and created modular furniture called Original Bipolars Unit.
The centre was conceived from 1993 and inaugurated on 20 March 1997 as the Centre national de l'édition et de l'art imprimé, built around the abandoned Maison Levanneur in the Hameau Fournaise on the Île des Impressionnistes at Chatou. Sylvie Boulanger was named director in 1996. Renamed Centre national édition art image in 2012, it later moved to the Magasins Généraux in Pantin (2017-2020), then to the Cité internationale universitaire de Paris.
The name cneai = stands for "centre d'art composé, navigué, engagé, abrité, imaginé", adopted in 2012 when the centre was renamed from Centre national de l'estampe et de l'art imprimé. Its collections bear the names of Yona Friedman, FMRA and Multiples, and since 2015 it co-organises the Multiple Art Days (MAD) fair with the Michael Woolworth studio, gathering around a hundred international publishers of fanzines, multiples, books, films and artists' records.
The centre is reached on foot from the bridges onto the Île des Impressionnistes, in the Hameau Fournaise near the Maison Levanneur. The Maison Flottante, the floating studio and residence, is moored on the Seine at Poses in Normandy, not beside the Chatou building. From 2026 the centre moves to the Maison Fleuve on the Île-Saint-Denis.
The center is home to the Maison Flottante, a floating artist residence designed by the renowned designer duo Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec. This unusual residency project allows international artists to live directly on the Seine while developing their work.
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