Saturday, July 2, 2011, at 11:00 AM in Coaraze
– Starting point of the route from Sainte-Catherine Square to Château Square.
This exhibition, presented from July 2 to November 7, 2011, is organized by the City of Coaraze and the National Museums of the 20th Century of Alpes-Maritimes.
It is part of the event Contemporary Art and the Côte d’Azur – A Territory for Experimentation, 1951-2011.
Featured artists: Pierre Descamps, Frédérique Nalbandian, Emilie Perotto, Xavier Theunis
In 1969, more than 40 years ago, four artists, Daniel Dezeuze, Patrick Saytour, Bernard Pagès, Claude Viallat, from the Supports/Surfaces group, chose to invest the public space of Coaraze, a small town in the hinterland of Nice, to present their work.
The event was significant because, for one of the first times in France, artworks left the places generally devoted to their presentation to occupy a space open to the circulation of everyone.
This year, Coaraze has chosen to repeat the event and, by partnering with the National Museums of the 20th Century of Alpes-Maritimes, has once again invited four young artists.
Thus, Pierre Descamps, Frédérique Nalbandian, Émilie Perotto, and Xavier Theunis have answered the call and in turn chosen to “occupy the terrain.”
While Frédérique Nalbandian installs a soap rock block wrapped in a net on the main square, with its shapes, exposed to climate erosion, resonating with the surrounding architecture and the folds of marly limestone below, Pierre Descamps intervenes in an abandoned space to give it new meaning.
A concrete block in the shape of an X sinks into the ground, like a foundation, acting as a minimal sculpture, an anonymous signature, and a human-sized “you are here.” Xavier Theunis has chosen to work with the large stone block to the right of the town hall on which several houses rest.
He has attached a new structure to it, on which one can only mentally project oneself, turning the rock into the support for a strange and enigmatic construction. As for Émilie Perotto, she invests the covered passages, the pontis, which are so characteristic.
Locations of the various artistic interventions:
Pierre Descamps: Col Saint-Roch road near Sainte-Catherine Square.
Frédérique Nalbandian: Church Square.
Emilie Perotto: under three pontis in the town.
Xavier Theunis: Portal Square.
