Villa Albertine and Albertine Foundation Launch the Villa Albertine Fund for the Arts, with Founding Support from the AXA Foundation for Human Progress
© © Des Signes With a funding capacity of $1 million per year, the new fund aims to expand the visibility and reach of French artistic work in the United States and strengthen French-American artistic collaborations.
New York, October 28, 2026 — Villa Albertine and Albertine Foundation announce the launch of the Villa Albertine Fund for the Arts, a new fund designed to strengthen the reach of French artistic creation in the United States and to foster French-American artistic collaborations.
The launch is marked by the signing of a partnership agreement today in New York with the AXA Foundation for Human Progress, which becomes the Fund’s Founding Patron. The agreement was signed at Villa Albertine’s headquarters by Mohamed Bouabdallah, Cultural Counselor of the Embassy of France in the United States and Director of Villa Albertine; Patrick Pagni, President of Albertine Foundation; and Clément Rouxel, General Delegate of the AXA Foundation for Human Progress.
With a funding capacity of $1 million per year, the Villa Albertine Fund for the Arts will strengthen the presence of French and Francophone artists in the U.S. cultural scene across the performing arts, music, visual arts, and new media. It will support ambitious projects — tours, exhibitions, performances, and artistic collaborations — while fostering exchanges among artists, cultural institutions, and professional networks on both sides of the Atlantic.
A transdisciplinary Fund to Strengthen Support for French Artistic Creation
For more than thirty years, the cultural services of the Embassy of France in the United States, now brought together within Villa Albertine, and Albertine Foundation have supported French and Francophone artists in their international development, by supporting the American cultural institutions that host them and encouraging French-American collaborations.
The United States plays a pivotal role in the international careers of French artists and offers a major space for visibility and recognition. Yet access to the American scene remains complex and costly. At the same time, artistic practices are evolving, boundaries between disciplines are blurring, and projects increasingly draw on hybrid, transdisciplinary forms of creation.
In response to these transformations, funding and grants programs must become more flexible and better coordinated.
The Villa Albertine Fund for the Arts addresses both of these developments. It brings together and expands previously existing, discipline-specific programs within a single transdisciplinary fund: FUSED, Albertine Music, Immersive Exhibition Grants, Étant donnés, and Theater and New Forms.
This new framework will enable greater coordination across existing programs, increase the funding available for individual projects, and support more collaborations at the intersection of disciplines. It will also provide American cultural institutions with a clearer framework for developing partnerships with French and Francophone artists.
This new initiative complements and strengthens the support Villa Albertine provides to artists, from research and artistic experimentation through its residency program, which recently celebrated its fifth anniversary, to the presentation of their work to American audiences and the development of lasting professional connections across the United States.
The Major Commitment of the AXA Foundation for Human Progress, Founding Patron
The support of the AXA Foundation for Human Progress, Founding Patron of the Villa Albertine Fund for the Arts, now gives this ambition a new dimension.
This partnership builds on AXA’s longstanding commitment to supporting culture in France and the United States, notably through its support for Villa Albertine’s Étant donnés program, dedicated to the visual arts.
Through a five-year commitment, the AXA Foundation for Human Progress provides the Villa Albertine Fund for the Arts with the resources and visibility needed to consolidate existing programs, increase funding for supported projects, and foster new Franco-American collaborations.
The Villa Albertine Fund for the Arts will launch its first call for applications on December 1, 2026, for American cultural institutions looking to work with French artists.
Our ambition is to raise the profile of French artistic creation across the United States and create new opportunities for artists to connect with American cultural institutions, arts presenters, curators, and audiences. As a natural extension of the residency program whose fifth anniversary we just celebrated, the Villa Albertine Fund for the Arts allows us to support artists from creation through to the dissemination of their work, and to build fruitful collaborations on both sides of the Atlantic. The AXA Foundation for Human Progress’s five-year commitment provides us with the resources and visibility needed to pursue this ambition over the long term.
Mohamed Bouabdallah Cultural Counselor and Director of Villa Albertine
At AXA, we firmly believe that culture and the arts are catalysts for progress, fostering social cohesion, innovation, and a shared sense of community. By supporting artistic creation on a broader scale, we aim to encourage cooperation and intercultural dialogue. This ambition reflects AXA’s purpose, which inspires our colleagues around the world: to act for human progress by protecting what matters. We are therefore proud to serve as the Founding Patron of the Villa Albertine Fund for the Arts, whose scale and long-term commitment mark a new chapter in our support for culture and the arts. As an international group with French roots and a presence in the United States since 1991, we believe the Villa Albertine Fund for the Arts will further strengthen the historic ties that unite us.
Thomas Buberl Chief Executive Officer of AXA
A Collective Commitment To Support French Creation
The commitment of the AXA Foundation for Human Progress complements that of leading public partners: the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Culture, the Institut Français, the Society of Authors in the Graphic and Plastic Arts (ADAGP), the National Music Center (CNM), and the National Center for Cinema and the Moving Image (CNC).
Villa Albertine is also grateful for the longstanding support of individual philanthropists, including Denise Littlefield Sobel and Mélanie and Frédéric Biessy.
By bringing together public partners, foundations, and philanthropists around a common goal, the Villa Albertine Fund for the Arts aims to firmly establish French artistic creation as a lasting presence at the heart of American cultural life and to foster new opportunities for dialogue, cooperation, and artistic exchange between the two countries.
Left to Right: Patrick Pagni, President of Albertine Foundation; Clément Rouxel, General Delegate of the AXA Foundation or Human Progress; and Mohamed Bouabdallah, Cultural Counselor of the Embassy of France in the United States and Director of Villa Albertine.
About Villa Albertine, the French Institute for Culture and Education
Villa Albertine is an institution of the French Embassy in the United States, supported by the French government and Albertine Foundation. Villa Albertine’s mission is to strengthen ties between the United States, France and the French-speaking world through culture and education.
In the arts and culture sphere, we encourage collaboration among French and US-based organizations and provide creators, thought leaders, and professionals with customized residencies, immersive networking experiences, grants, and connections to audiences so they can explore and share new insights into society’s pressing issues.
In the field of education, we craft projects and programs aimed at making French language and culture accessible to young US-based audiences, expand opportunities for students to study and complete internships in France, and support partnerships between French and American higher education and research institutions.
Villa Albertine is present in 10 major US cities –– Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, New Orleans, San Francisco, and Washington, DC –– and publishes an annual magazine, States. It is headquartered in New York’s historic Payne Whitney mansion, home to Albertine, our bookshop and nexus for French-American intellectual exchange.
Follow Villa Albertine on Instagram, Facebook, X, and LinkedIn.
About Albertine Foundation
Albertine Foundation is an American nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting French American relations through innovative cultural and educational programs.
In close partnership with Villa Albertine, the French Institute for Culture and Education, Albertine Foundation administers grant programs across diverse creative disciplines including visual and performing arts; cinema; and literature, while also supporting exploratory residencies for creative professionals and thinkers across the United States. Albertine Foundation also contributes to promoting French language learning in the United States and funds new opportunities for students, professors, and researchers in the spheres of secondary and higher education.
Albertine Foundation is a non-profit 501(c)(3) corporation by Internal Revenue Service determination. Contributions from corporations, foundations, and individuals are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.
About the AXA Foundation for Human Progress
The AXA Foundation for Human Progress brings together the main philanthropic actions of AXA Group and AXA Mutuelles d’Assurances, in France and worldwide. With an endowment of 60 million euros per year, this fund aims to amplify support for impactful projects in AXA's four historical areas of sponsorship: science, nature, solidarity and culture. The AXA Foundation for Human Progress is fully aligned with AXA’s mission: "Acting for human progress by protecting what matters." Through this Fund, AXA implements its broader vision of protection, which extends to the resilience of societies and the reduction of inequalities, today and for future generations.
Visit the website: AXA Foundation for Human Progress | Repair Today, Prepare for Tomorrow
Media Relations: +33.1.40.75.46.74
Appendix
Artists and Projects Supported by Villa Albertine in 2026
In 2026, the programs now brought together under the Villa Albertine Fund for the Arts are supporting, among other initiatives, director Mohamed El Khatib’s U.S. tour across five cities, from New York to Seattle; a Franco-American collaboration between choreographer Aina Alegre and trombonist Maria Cofan in New Orleans; and an exhibition by visual artist Laurent Grasso at MASS MoCA. In the field of immersive creation, works are also being presented in San Francisco, Miami, and New York, including Katàbasis by Ugo Arsac, winner of the Best Immersive Work Award at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival.
These projects illustrate the diversity of disciplines, geographic reach, and forms of collaboration that the Villa Albertine Fund for the Arts seeks to expand further.
A Few Examples of Support in the United States in 2026
The Secret Lives of Old People by Mohamed El Khatib
U.S. tour: Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH; Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, New York, NY; On the Boards, Seattle, WA; Boom Arts, Portland, OR; CAP-UCLA, Los Angeles, CA
At Dawn: A Franco-American Creation by Choreographer Aina Alegre and Trombonist Maria Cofan
International Dance Festival New Orleans
Metaphysical Maze by Laurent Grasso
Mass MOCA Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art,
November 7, 2026–January 16, 2028
Unnatural – Of Humus & Artifact by Sandrine Deumier
Gray Area, San Francisco, January 21–March 15, 2026
Playing with Fire, by Pierre-Alain Giraud & Yuja Wang
Lincoln Center, New York, presented in Fall 2026
Katabasis, an Immersive Work by Ugo Arsac
Onassis ONX, New York, starting September 24, 2026
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