During the international gardens festival — on from now until november 2016 — french designer Mathieu Lehanneur brings the 'Petite Loire' installation to the courtyard of Domaine de Chaumont-sur-loire centre d’arts et de nature in France. The installation focuses on the way in which marble, water and light come together in an ideal combination.
Petite Loire is the surreal and materialized vision of the static river in its movement. Entirely made of polished green marble, the work perfectly reproduces the relief of water. The environment reflects and distorts itself. Petite Loire seems like a piece of a river fossilized in stone.
Petite Loire is the surreal and materialized vision of the static river in its movement. Entirely made of polished green marble, the work perfectly reproduces the relief of water. The environment reflects and distorts itself. Petite Loire seems like a piece of a river fossilized in stone.
“I wanted to address the garden with water as my muse. The water whose presence we sense even before we first catch sight of it below the Château, flowing uninterrupted to the sea. Some say the Loire is France’s last wild river; it shapes and nourishes the landscapes, it passes through without ever pausing along the way. Petite Loire is a freeze-frame, the river’s perpetual movement caught in a frozen, fossilized moment. A few dozen meters above the river’s natural level, Petite Loire cuts cleanly through the garden’s surface, delving into the soil to reveal a fluvial relief, both vertiginous and practicable, in green marble” says Lehanneur.
Based on the idea of showing ephemeral things - of capturing indistinct, random moments and transforming them into something solid, the project Liquid Marble explores the possibilities of algorithm, in an effort to hold and freeze what usually disappears into vanity.
"I hope that, when passing the Chateau gates, the visitor will experience something that comes close to a magic portal, to a forbidden place in so many fairytales. Everything is liquid in this space, evanescent, enlightened, and yet it is executed in a material that is the one of the most solid imaginable.” Mathieu Lehanneur.
A variation of Mathieu Lehanneur’s ongoing ‘liquid marble’ series, exploring the materiality of natural stone after which it is named, will be installed at the Victoria and Albert Museum during the London Design Festival 2016 (17-25 September 2016)."I like the contrast between the deep silence of Liquid Marble and Norfolk House Music Room, whose luxurious décor hosted the most beautiful symphonies." explains the artist.
Designed using the latest 3D software, normally used for moving pictures and special effects, Liquid Marble is entirely made in digitally sculpted black marble and polished by hand. Liquid Marble is 45 cm high, and will be displayed at the Victoria & Albert Museum elevated by a pedestal, this leaves the opportunity for visitors to sit on this disturbing material which is both liquid and solid.
