Last week we visited the 8th version of the Chaumont-sur-Loire ‘ART Season’. As our friend Lucia Latenstein was selected with Les Parterres en Kit for the ‘Chaumont International Garden Festival’ we considered it a proper occasion to go to Chaumont to visit both shows.
With regard to the gardens we saw several nice layouts and we liked especially the idea and implementation of « Je Reste » (see above) and of course Lucia’s « Rooftop Power Plant »
After the gardens we went to the ‘Art Season Exhibition’. Most of the artists who were invited for this year’s edition were among the very well known names in art. We therefore were very curious about the outcome. It maybe did not help that two weeks before, we visited the amazing gardens of the Kröller Müller Museum in the Netherlands but today we were somewhat disappointed. From the new for 2016 commissioned works we, in fact, only found Lee Bae’s ‘Issu du feu » and Goldsworthy’s outside installation convincing. We further did like the Kounellis in the old cellar, the El Anatsui (the older piece, NOT the 2016 work), Chris Drury’s Carbon Pool and Christian Lapie’s ‘La constellation du fleuve 2015’.
Marc Couturier’s work was suffering from poor lighting conditions and did not work therefore and we didn’t appreciate the sensationalism of Henrique Oliveira. The greatest let-downs were the 2016 piece of El Anatsui and the gracelessness of Kawamata’s ‘Promontoire’.
But as just one beautiful piece can make your day, it was a day well spend!
Attention!! The Chateau Chaumont-sur-Loire also hosts a WCCV exhibition with the WC of the Krüller Müller Museum, the Netherlands in order to enhance the CV of Pronk van der Meijden aka PetraH.
