In addition to the exhibition dedicated to Jean Le Gac, as every year, there are other contemporary artistic presences, in the castle and park of Chaumont-sur-Loire (Loir-et-Cher). In the noble rooms of the chateau, Françoise Vergier arranges, on the dark wood furniture, some of her heads of pagan deities of the Earth or the Moon, ceramics painted and extravagantly adorned with beading and excessive headdresses; and, in the cellars, Christiane Löhr places her no less extravagant constructions of dried herbs and seeds that a breath would disperse.
Also in the chateau, the monumental bookcases lightly painted on canvas by Carole Benzaken respond to those, crystallized in glass with green or red lights, by Pascal Convert, who have been there for two years.
In the pavilions that were barns or stables, you have to stay as long as necessary in front of Evi Keller’s monumental installation: on a vast surface lined with reliefs, the light varies and moves slowly, making forms appear and disappear alternately where the e think we recognize planets or deserts.
Hanging Transparent Shapes
You should also go and see how Lélia Demoisy uses bark, branches or snake skins. She turns them into skeletons of fantastic animals and the traces of vanished civilizations which she stores, like archaeological remains in museums.
As for the park, which is increasingly populated with facilities, it will welcome John Grade this summer. From the branches of a large pine tree, he hung 5,000 transparent shapes, attached to two almost invisible nets. When it rains, the water accumulates in these containers which gradually take the form of large drops, and the whole lowers due to the weight of the water. When it evaporates, it rises towards the foliage. We can only see in this device a skilful game with nature. It can also bring to mind so many parts of the world where conserving rainwater is a necessity – an increasingly vital necessity today.
