A very official opening ceremony for the new season of contemporary art in Chaumont-sur-Loire in the presence of Manuel Valls and the minister of culture Audrey Azoulay, who took advantage of the ceremony to unveil the foundations of the future “1% culture” law in favor of supporting artists of all disciplines. The artists make the link over the seasons between nature and heritage in the stately park and castle conducive to all audacities, five of them are photographers and video artists. They are English (Andy Goldsworthy), French (Jean-Baptiste Huynh), Brasilian (Luiza Simons), Italian (Quayola) and South Korean (Han Sungpil). They are passionate about photography, but also painting, sculpture, installation, video and the world of 3D.
Master of land art Andy Goldsworthy captures elements to vary temporalities and mediums, photography giving his ephemeral interventions an ordered persistence of perpetual epiphany. This unprecedented cairn conceived in the park where rock and vegetation will eventually marry is endowed with a new life thanks to photography.
Jean-Baptiste Huynh, in a language purified and devoid of artifice, looks into portraits, nudes, nature, fire, and twilights in series focused around light. A unique subject in square and large format prints allow him to capture the essence in a connection with the infinite.
Luzia Simons finds gestures prior to the photographic medium in the footsteps of Man Ray with his “scanograms”, a discipline in which she is a pioneer. Replacing the camera by a scanner, the high digital resolution allows her to develop monumental diptychs and triptychs around isolated floral patterns elevated into art work . After the breathtaking repixelated trompe-l’oeil tulips in her country’s modernist gardens, which she submits to the same effective distortions, a reflection of the secret drama comes.
Quayola, from video mapping, created immersive digital environments where colors, shapes, proportions and sounds evolve non-stop and stir emotions and mental collisions in viewers. In the confines of animated painting, these landscapes are an invitation to meditate and an ode to impermanence.
Han Sungpil, during a residence in 2015 in the Domaine (international Odyssey program), made this “clouds” series over the course of performances which were poetic and humorous, but always connected to questions of local environment.
Finally, Marc Couturier and his research about the invisible can join this panorama with several interventions, replaying the revelation of outer space with subtile green puddles, stained glass windows, starred blankets, so many signs of the supernatural and developing baths made to flush out .
This search for revealed sublime is without a doubt that which brings these works together around the transitory states of nature , and to photographic substance. Both philosophically and formally impactful, it transcends what is happening to it and captivates us long after.
INFORMATION
Saison d’art 2016, Domaine de Chaumont sur Loire (région Centre-Val de Loire)
Centre d’art et de nature
http://www.domaine-chaumont.fr/
