| Château La Coste: Sean Scully – Wall of Light Cubed (2007) |
Oak woods and banks of wildflowers set the scene for our arrival at Chateau la Coste, the first of our series of visits to gardens near Aix-en-Provence.
One needs comfortable shoes and plenty of time to explore the smorgasbord of thought provoking installations at Chateau la Coste which describes itself as ‘a vineyard where wine, art and architecture live in harmony’. We walked for a couple of hours through the woods and vines to the sites selected by the twenty or so artists
| Frank O. Gehry: PAVILION DE MUSIQUE 2008 |
As there are so many of them, it is not possible here to reflect on all the varied structures installed by the artists. I appreciated Louise Bourgeois’ slightly malevolent ‘Crouching Spider’, and Frank Gehry’s dramatic Pavilion de Musique but at the same time, the gardener in me was looking for works with harmonious shapes which connected to the natural world around them.
The American artist Tom Shannon’s polished stainless steel ‘Drop’ is a perfect fit in the near and distant landscape. Appearing to float effortlessly on its plexiglass support, the flattened sphere is an arresting sight; a complete contrast to the surrounding countryside, but blending at the same time with the surrounding trees and with the ever-changing sky reflecting in the mirror-like surface. Is the beautiful and serene droplet also a statement about the consequences of climate change and our dwindling supplies of water?
| Tom Shannon: DROP 2009 |
‘Donegal’, the Irish artist Larry Neufeld’s two immaculate slate bridges interact beautifully with the landscape and each other by referencing the curve of the distant hill behind, while under the double arches the breeze bends the water reeds beneath into graceful curves. Man and nature in perfect harmony.
| Larry Neufeld: DONEGAL 2013 |
South Korean artist Lee Kufans’ ‘House of Air’ questions our perceptions of the natural and the man-made world. In front of the house, a large stone found nearby on the property sits in a forecourt of pale coloured gravel with a dark shadow. But is it a shadow? Darker coloured gravel defines what our eye perceives to be a shadow. And when the sun shines, a second shadow is another contrasting, moving element.
| Lee Kufans: HOUSE OF AIR |
The gardener in me is alerted to the fact that this simple device, an object with an artificial shadow, could be easily adapted as a witty installation in our home gardens.
Inside the Temporary Exhibition Gallery, Chinese artist Ai Weiwei’s exuberant and ethereally beautiful installation, woven and stitched out of natural materials – cane, silk fabric and fine twine, was a powerful and challenging series of statements on the artist’s interpretation of creatures in Chinese and mythological texts. His favourite themes of politics, exploitation, and resistance are introduced and the information supplied helped to make sense of the meaning behind the exquisite shapes and shadows. It was a final note of magic which was the end of the beginning of our first ‘Art and Gardens’ experience.
| Detail from Ai Weiwei’s MOUNTAINS AND SEAS |
Text and Photographs: Ruth Caple