Les Moulins, Twenty Years of Art

Les Moulins, a former paper mill in Seine-et-Marne, becomes one of France’s most singular contemporary art spaces.

Twenty years ago, three friends made a choice. Mario Cristiani, Lorenzo Fiaschi, and Maurizio Rigillo, founders of Galleria Continua in San Gimignano. Together, they drove out to Boissy-le-Châtel and saw something others might have missed: four industrial hangars, a river, an ancient paper mill. As a result, they decided to stay and Les Moulins was born.

Les Moulins is not quite a gallery, not quite a museum. Across 40,000 square meters, monographic exhibitions coexist with a skatepark, a restaurant open all summer, and site-specific productions that feel grown from the ground rather than placed upon it. The architecture, designed by MBL Architectes when they were just starting out, respects the site’s industrial structure without trying to recreate the past.

What makes Les Moulins rare is its insistence on people. From the very beginning, the space was built as a site of dialogue. Between contemporary art, industrial architecture, and the surrounding territory. As a result, that same spirit shaped the Continu’Actions program. Every day, Les Moulins opens up to children, school groups, families, and curious minds. Not to explain art. But to let people experience it directly, on their own terms.

Fifty Voices for Twenty Years

For Les Moulins anniversary, Galleria Continua invited over fifty people to respond. Among them curator Nicolas Bourriaud, artist Julio Le Parc, and critic Simon Njami .Collectors, journalists, families, long-time partners, and passing visitors who stayed longer than expected. Each was asked to speak to an artist, a memory, a moment that mattered.

The Works

Les Moulins brings together pieces that have marked the site over two decades alongside new productions. For instance, Michelangelo Pistoletto’s Labirinto e Grande Pozzo disorients the visitor completely. Every step forward feels like a search for an exit. At its center sits a mirror. A surface for confrontation with oneself. Simple material, symbolic journey.

Sislej Xhafa’s Silvio stands five meters tall, modeled on Berlusconi. It looks monumental. It is made of sand. Only a space like Les Moulins, vast enough to hold both the gesture and the silence around it. It makes that contradiction land the way it does.

The result sits somewhere between a retrospective and a living archive. Historical works and new productions share the same walls, without hierarchy. On one hand, some pieces carry decades of weight. On the other hand, others were born for this moment. Together, they bring the past and present together.

In fact, twenty years on, Les Moulins keeps moving. New conversations emerge. New work takes shape. Visitors keep finding reasons to return. That longevity is not the byproduct of a successful cultural project. It is the project itself. Twenty years in, Les Moulins still refuses to be contained.

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