Chapelle Jeanne d'Arc

About

The Jeanne-d'Arc Chapel is a neo-Gothic chapel located in Thouars, in the French department of Deux-Sèvres, currently used as a centre of contemporary art of national interest.

History: Of neogothic architecture, the construction of the Jeanne-d'Arc chapel ended in 1889. It is part of a set of buildings housing a private Catholic school (called "Institut Jeanne-d'Arc") run by religious of the Retraite which has up to 135 students in 1941. In the late 1970s, the buildings were abandoned and then bought by the city of Thouars. Only the chapel is preserved and the rest of the site is transformed into landscaped parking. Centre d'art contemporain since 2010 and labeled "national interest" since 2019 by the Ministry of Culture, the chapel Jeanne-d'Arc welcomes between 5,000 and 10,000 visitors a year in 2022 and is a reference point for contemporary art in the Great West.

Direction: Since 2023, the new head is Martial Déflacieux, who succeeds Antoine Réguillon.

Exposed artists: Among the main artists exhibited are: