Splendors and miseries of art

Two interesting articles in Le Monde today: One on efforts to expel (or prevent the expulsion of) artists from squats, and another on a new cultural center on the Ile Séguin, the former home of the Renault factories.

I'm not 100% sure about the laws for this, but I've been under the impression that there's a law in France that says a building that has been abandoned by its owners for 10 years can be squatted. The artists' squat, a former movie theater in the 13th arrondissement, has existed since 2003, the same year that, according to the article, the owner of the building won a trial against the squatters and since when it has been trying to have them expelled. I'm not sure how to explain that-- perhaps the current owner is different from the previous, absentee owner? Or were the squatters just discovered immediately?

Two other artists' squats, one in the 19th and one in the 10th arrondissment, are also threatened by expulsion orders, although the City of Paris is trying to mediate between the national government and the artists to slow the process down, find other housing for the artists, or even acquire the buildings. It has done that in the past, most famously at 59, rue de Rivoli.

Here's the transcript of the press conference that refers to the Ile Seguin. The "European center for contemporary creation" will get 50% of its funding from the French state and will be a site for both creation and exhibition.

So, two different attitudes about the role of the artist in today's society: For the squatters, an artist who accepts the system of galleries, museums, and public subsidies and prizes has "sold out" just as much as an Academy painter during the Second Empire; for the developers of the Ile Seguin, art should be used by the State as a vector of urban renewal.