A former alpine ski champion, he is at the helm of Alliance Française, the world’s largest by revenue.
Madame Figaro. – At the time of waking up?
Tatiana Frank. – Around 6:45 a.m. when my 5-year-old son, Ulysses, wakes up. Then we practice elephant yoga together. Babar five to twenty minutes.
The height of your position.
I chair America’s largest foundation for French-speaking cultures and the promotion of the French language, which is also a teaching center with 6,000 students at its two campuses, one in Manhattan and the other in New Jersey. In New York, our building has a theater with more than 400 seats, which is both a stage and a cinema, an exhibition hall, an auditorium, a library, sky room at 8e floor, where we will organize dance performances. 80 people work for us, 200 are teachers.
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Obstacles on the way.
When I arrived in 2022, one of the main challenges was to bring the public and students back to our premises post-Covid. We developed hybrid courses (face-to-face and distance learning), which we discontinued. We also want to rejuvenate the public, particularly around the cinema program.
Accelerators to your journey.
Skiing between the ages of 8 and 16 has given me the drive and desire to surpass myself. I participated in French, European and world championships. And the meeting with Claude Picasso, the son of Pablo Picasso and Françoise Gillot, who trusted me at an age when I still had everything to prove. At 22, after a double degree in law and art history, he put me in charge of his collection of modern, contemporary art, design and photography. Then, at the age of 29, the culture minister of the canton of Vaud chose me to direct the Foto Elysée, in Lausanne, the largest photography museum in Europe. A bold choice. I was the first woman and the youngest to direct a very large museum, with no experience managing or managing a cultural institution. It was a big, very entrepreneurial project that characterizes my career.
Results must be given here and now.
At the Photo Élysée I brought the archives of Sabina Weiss and then the archives of Jan Groover, whose exhibition I curated in 2022 at the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation. In New York I anchored my vision. Making the New York alliance a bridge between the Americas and French-speaking cultures. We are the largest Alliance Française in the world by revenue, going from $11 million to $15 million. We revised the identity of the Alliance (125 years this year), clarified the mission, values and launched a fundraising campaign. we have already raised 9 million. I updated half the board the trustees and recruited a new curatorial team.
Skiing between the ages of 8 and 16 has given me the drive and desire to surpass myself.
Tatiana Frank
From the beginning?
A small granite archipelago in the Chauzey Islands. I had a bit of a troubled childhood and this place where I went trapping with the fishermen is a rock for me.
The device that started it all.
My French teacher in Switzerland who opened me up to culture and the world of art. Patrice Bianchi, my skiing coach and former Olympic champion, who allowed me to reach this level without doing sports studies. And Miguel Fernández Félix, the former director of Mexico City’s Palace of Fine Arts, with whom in 2014 I toured the world’s largest museum directors to negotiate the loan of works and organize a Picasso exhibition in four months.
A challenge for tomorrow.
Bringing preschool that we built in Montclair, New Jersey, which welcomes its first students in September.
I chair the largest American foundation promoting French-speaking cultures and the French language.
Tatiana Frank
Take a break, shall we?
When I’m on the subway going to Rockaway Beach (In Queens, Editor’s Note) go surfing. I forget everything.
Defining your influence.
See students from 1 to 101 learning French.
Crossing The Line Festival, September 5-December 7 at L’Alliance New York. lallianceny.org:
Source: Le Figaro
