How can we situate the dimension of art, loaded with reflections about the medium and the human condition, in a natural setting of such beauty that it overwhelms those who live there?
This is one of the questions inspiring the selection of works making up the first BIENALSUR intervention at Crans-Montana: a group of sculptures standing in a public space.
A vast keyhole bearing the word “invisible” on its upper rim looms rigid in surroundings of mountains and valleys which bear silent witness to all that we are unable to see, and thus neglect. The opportunity to gaze and even pass through this work by Marie Orensanz transforms it into a kind of portal, connecting us with two dimensions of reality.
On a different note, Run for the Music is an apparently silent series of vertical colored rods standing in a line, waiting for a passer-by to strike them individually as they walk past. This is when a sequence rings out, the sounds of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, a message from Leandro Erlich evoking the brotherhood of man.
There is a reflection on the urgent need to protect the environment embodied in the installation by Pablo Reinoso who reinvents an alternative vision of nature using fallen tree trunks and metal structures.
Crooked nails, by the Cuban collective Los Carpinteros, suggests the place of materials, access and discards in the contemporary world. Also, an allegory of the subject and its practices in today's society.
This exhibition is an exploration of contemporary humanism, a fusion of art, nature and culture which find new forms of expression in this project.
Artists: Leandro Erlich (ARG), Courir pour la musique [Run for the Music], 2016; Marie Orensanz (ARG/FRA), Invisible (La Serrure), 2018; Pablo Reinoso (ARG/FRA), Arbres agrandis [Augmented Tree], 2019; Lluís Lleó (ESP), Senso; Los Carpinteros (CUB). Valentin Carrón, L'homme qui fuit (masse), 2018, was part of the Parcour Culturel until 1 October 2019.
BIENALSUR opening in Switzerland:
