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On this day in
1832 was born Paul Gustave Doré, French artist, engraver, and illustrator.
1872 Russian pianist and composer Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin was born
1993 died Rudolf Nureyev , one of the greatest male ballet dancers of the 20th century
2004 died Francesco Scavullo, American photographer best known for his celebrity portraits. |
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MONUMENTA 2008: Richard Serra in Paris
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| Tuesday, June 10, 2008 |
For the second consecutive year, the Grand Palais is inviting one of the greatest artists on the international conntemporary scene to engage with the building’s immense volumes. American sculptor Richard Serra responds to the challenge for Monumenta 2008, with a new Promenade, completely transforming the space of the Grand Palais in an intense dialogue with the ethereal structures of the nave – a promise of numerous, fascinating encounters within and around a work designed to be seen from a diversity of points of view. Minister of Culture and Communication
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Promenade, 2008 I Acier. Cinq éléments de 1700 x 400 x 13 cm chacun. Photo Lorenz Kienzle - Tous droits réservés Monumenta 2008, ministère de la Culture et de la Communication. |
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MONUMENTA is an ambitious artistic confrontation: each year, a leading international contemporary artist is invited to create a group of new works, specially conceived for the 13,500-m2 nave of the Grand Palais, in Paris. Evocatively entitled Promenade, Richard Serra’s installation for MONUMENTA 2008 presents a radical, poetic landscape of steel, minimalist yet full of movement. The work’s simplified, majestic forms play on effects of contrast with the ethereal architecture of the metal and glass nave of the Grand Palais. The artist disrupts the visitor’s relationship to the setting, and offers a unique experience designed to challenge our perception of space and gravity.
Born in 1939, Richard Serra has been one of the leading exponents of modern American sculpture over the past three decades. His monumental steel sculptures reflect a minimalist approach, generating an intense spatial awareness that focuses attention on their production processes and the dialogue between the work and its environment. Working with industrial materials and highly complex engineering techniques, Serra’s installations embody a plastic approach that pushes the powerful physical and material characteristics of the works to their utmost extremes. Richard Serra’s often enormous sculptures are quite literally ’experienced’ by the visitor, who moves both ’within’ and around them, discovering an altered, often dizzying perception of their relationship to the space. For these reasons, Richard Serra was immediately attracted by the potential of the nave of the Grand Palais, rising to a height of 45 metres at its centre.
Alfred Pacquement, curator and director of the Musée National d’Art Moderne at the Centre Pompidou, is the curator MONUMENTA 2008.
Promenade, 2008 I Acier. Cinq éléments de 1700 x 400 x 13 cm chacun. Photo Lorenz Kienzle - Tous droits réservés Monumenta 2008, ministère de la Culture et de la Communication. |
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TRANSFORMING THE GRAND PALAIS: In the nave of the Grand Palais, Richard Serra disrupts our relationship to the architectural set ting and offers a unique experience designed to challenge our perception of balance and gravity. An alarming confrontation with the space of the Grand Palais, playing on our perception and responses, whose very installation constitutes an impressive feat of technical skill and prowess. Promenade is experienced by walking in the nave of the Grand Palais. This immensely impressive, meditative work elicits a powerful response on the part of the spectator, whose sensations and emotions constitute, for the artist,
the essential subject-matter of his work. Minimalist and majestic, the installation establishes an unprecedented dialogue between Richard Serra’s work and the transparent steel and glass architecture of the Grand Palais. The contrast between the world’s last surviving ’crystal palace’ and the raw steel sculpture creates a cerebral space, and an invitation to share in an extraordinary artistic journey.
Further Information
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