(Chaumont-sur-Loire) The Chaumont-sur-Loire estate, known for its International Garden Festival, has hosted since Thursday a monumental sculpture by the Spanish artist Miquel Barceló, the first of which has been so imposing made in one piece. holding.
Named The Chaumont cavein the form of a nod to the prehistoric site of the Chauvet cave in the south of France, the work weighs eight tons and measures four by six meters.
Positioned so as to appear to emerge from a grove, it represents the giant mouth of a monstrous animal with green-brown eyes, very human, with stalactite-shaped teeth, ready to snatch visitors.
PHOTO GUILLAUME SOUVANT, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Positioned so as to appear to emerge from a grove, it represents the giant mouth of a monstrous animal with green-brown eyes, very human, with stalactite-shaped teeth, ready to snatch visitors.
“It’s a den that’s going to take root.” The cave is a place of memory. Here, it’s a bit of an artist’s workshop: the painting is the red tongue of the beast, the painter, in the form of a self-portrait, mixes with the models,” Miquel Barceló, 67, told AFP.
Designed to withstand outdoors, it required the construction of a 10-meter kiln, and was transported from the artist’s brickmaking workshop in Majorca to the Balearic Islands, by boat then by exceptional road convoy.
PHOTO GUILLAUME SOUVANT, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Images inspired by cave art appear numerously in the sculpture: horses, fish, skulls, handprints, squid or jellyfish.
“Visitors will think of the biblical episode of Jonah, others still of Rodin’s The Gates of Hell… There are many examples of these big open mouths in the history of art,” recalls the ‘artist.
Images inspired by cave art appear numerously in the sculpture: horses, fish, skulls, handprints, squid or jellyfish. At the bottom of the cave, a hole seems to go all the way to the bottom of the earth.
PHOTO GUILLAUME SOUVANT, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
“It’s a den that’s going to take root.” The cave is a place of memory. Here, it’s a bit of an artist’s workshop: the painting is the red tongue of the beast, the painter, in the form of a self-portrait, mixes with the models,” Miquel Barceló, 67, told AFP.
“In the early 80s, my painting was that of a contemporary European artist. I have always been a modern painter. But, the more the years pass, the more I look back. Today I am much closer to cave art,” smiles the sculptor and ceramist.
Miquel Barcelo is known for having created the famous mantle for the cathedral of Palma de Mallorca.
“It’s a new madness that is taking hold in Chaumont Park. It will appeal to both contemporary art lovers and neophytes, but also younger people,” said Chantal Colleu-Dumond, director of the estate which houses the castle.