All Sections

Louise Bourgeois, Francois Morellet, Giuseppe Penone, Focus on 3 contemporary works installed in the Jardin des Tuileries

hatchikian-gallery-louise-bourgeois-francois-morellet-giuseppe-penone-focus-on-3-contemporary-works-installed-in-the-garden-of-tuileries-blog

Perhaps you have strolled in the Tuileries garden without ever noticing them… the place has a number of contemporary works to discover, acquired by the State or installed by foundations. You have to move away from the main paths and look for them between the trees and the flower beds. A look at three of them to discover or rediscover during a next walk. 

hatchikian-gallery-the-welcoming-hands-louise-bourgeois-blog

The Welcoming Hands, sculpture by Louise Bourgeois

Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010)

The Welcoming Hands, 1996, Louise Bourgeois, a work acquired by the French State in 2000 and installed in the Jardin des Tuileries on the terrace near the Jeu de Paume gallery. Originally, the work was produced for Battery Park in NYC opposite Ellis Island, a crossing point for newcomers where the Statue of Liberty is erected to which it echoes. A set of sculptures in memory of immigrants, celebrating the benevolent welcome, the protection, as a gesture of welcome. The work is composed of 6 sculptures of intertwined bronze hands placed on 6 granite plinths of different sizes and heights so that, according to the artist's intentions, each visitor can sit and hold hands, "in the same way. in which an adult would hold a child's hand, with a sense of protection and affection ”. “The subject was very moving for me, because I am a first generation American [in the sense of American immigration, the first member of a family to be naturalized]. The piece was installed in a specific way for a specific purpose ”. These hands were modeled after those, already aging, of the artist, and of a child. A conflict had opposed Louise Bourgeois and the administration of Battery Park City the year following the creation of the work. Indeed, the Holocaust museum to open its doors on the same site, the sculpted hands could have been interpreted as parts of the body in reference to the concentration camps. The Welcoming Hands were then moved to the park, and placed in an area hidden by branches. The artist, who was not informed, said she was hurt. Through her assistant Jerry Gorovoy, she made it known that moving it from the work without her consent was insulting. For Jerry Gorovoy, “This is what art is: people see things in different ways. Art makes us think. Do they think that by hiding their hands in the bushes, people will have a different interpretation? ". A legal battle ensued with the administration of Battery Park, considering themselves the owner of the work paid for 350000 dollars and as such free to move it. Where does the artist's intention and creative prerogative end in relation to the public institution at the origin of the order?  

Born in 1911, Louise Bourgeois moved to NYC in 1938 until her death in 2010. Her work as an iconoclastic organic plastic artist is a way of giving substance to the language of the unconscious. For the artist, creation has always been close to the therapy and psychoanalysis analysis that has accompanied his existence for more than 30 years. Art is a guarantee of mental health, she said. She conceives and practices it as a means of exorcising her childhood sufferings and traumas. The work is structured by the ambivalence of affects and the duality of emotions. The iconic spiders of her heritage are a metaphor for the mother figure, both protective and disturbing. As a child, Louise Bourgeois spent hours watching her mother work in her husband's tapestry restoration workshop. The spider is this mother who spins, weaves, protects with her web. The monumental spiders in worked and twisted bronze on slender steel legs that give them a slender lightness are exhibited in the largest museums and art foundations in the world. Very personal themes marked by anxiety and desire. "I'm not looking for an image or an idea, I want to create desire and emotion".  GPS coordinates of the Welcoming Hands artwork 48° 51′ 55″ N, 2° 19′ 22″ E

hatchikian-gallery-arcs-de-circles-complementaires-francois-molleret-blog

Complementary arcs of circles, installation by Francois Morellet

Francois Morellet (1926-2016)

The work was created and installed in 1999 on a public commission from the State to the artist. It is an installation composed of six arches of Carrara marble that form a fragmented curve (fragmentation being one of the emblematic figures of the artist's work; the research on fragmentation, juxtaposition, interference, transcends all of his work) It is arranged in the niches at the top of the vaults along the buttresses at the entrance located at Place de la Concorde. The artist designed this curve echoing the geometry of that formed by the large inclined planes that develop along the buttresses of the Tuileries garden. François Morellet, born in 1926, is one of the major representatives of concrete art, plastic artist of minimalist geometric abstraction. The arcs of circles are part of a movement described by the artist as architectural disintegration which transforms the perception of spaces through a minimalist play of lines and ruptures, of contrasts between materials. The artist subtly plays with formal patterns to shake up the way of apprehending reality and creates a destabilizing visual game with the viewer. So many arrangements that interact with their context while staging a visual experience. The refined geometric rigor and the simplicity of harmony are not, however, devoid of playfulness and impertinence. François Morellet, born in 1926,  was a founding member in 1960 of the Visual Art Research Group (GRAV). He is one of the artists among the most represented in public institutions, a number of commissions have enabled him to deploy his work in privileged spaces, in situ projects in cities and their systems.  architectural designs which he calls “disintegrations”. The algorithmic creative process finds its translation in several types of supports and materials. Neon installations also connect him to the kinetic art movement. GPS coordinates of the Complementary Circle Arcs 48° 51′ 54″ N, 2° 19′ 22″ E

hatchikian-gallery-vowel-tree-giuseppe-penone-blog

The vowel tree, monumental sculpture by Giuseppe Penone

Giuseppe Penone (1947)

The Vowel Tree, a monumental bronze sculpture by Giuseppe Penone, is a realistic cast of an uprooted dead oak tree of 28 meters. In the beginning was the verb? From the tree to the words, from the roots to the language, the work is an inspiring allegory, an inexhaustible questioning. The vowels I, E, O, U, A are written by the intertwined roots of the tree. It is up to everyone to find them, to deploy their words like the tree its branches… The branches of the sculpture branch out on the ground to the foot of five living trees which will grow and intertwine nature and sculpture. The five vowels are those of a Celtic druid alphabet which associates each letter with a deity. The five species planted (oak, alder, poplar, ash, yew) at the ends of the five sculpted branches / vowels correspond to the trees associated with the five deities. We can not help but also think of the poem Voyelles by Arthur Rimbaud: A black E white I Red O green U blue. The landscape designer Pascal Cribier collaborated with the sculptor to imagine the installation of the work in a plant environment that changes with each season, thus making it possible to admire the work from different perspectives and to integrate this life cycle into the perception. 

The mimetic perfection of the work is disturbing and gives a memorial dimension to the dead tree which inspired it. The representation of the cycle of life, of the natural cycle is eminently present in the work of Giuseppe Penone, which explores the confrontation of natural materials, wood, stone, ...  to the elements, wind, water, weather changes. The spirit of arte povera permeates the artist's career even if his work is not reduced to this single approach. L'arbre des vowels was a public commission from 1999 among other commissions aimed at combining art and nature as part of the renovation of the Tuileries Gardens.

GPS coordinates of the work Vowel Tree 48° 51′ 47″ N, 2° 19′ 34″ E

Add your title here

Advice / Services

We support you in all stages of your acquisition: choice of the work, financing, supervision.

SHIPPING DETAILS

We deliver to you worldwide at the best prices thanks to our specialized transport network.

protection / AUTHENTICITY

We guarantee you optimal security in your payments by credit card, bank transfer and check. All our original works are accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from the artist.

   

Book an appointment
Open chat
Need help?
Hello, how can we help you?