Monumenta 2014...
5:19 p.m.
Paris' Grand Palais is currently housing an installation created by artists Ilya and Emilia Kabakov for the sixth edition of Monumenta, an exhibition held annually in the 13.500-mts2 space that was once venue for the Internacional Fair.
Kabakov's installation, entitled “L'étrange cité” (The Strange City), opens with a metallic structure of sound and color-changing technology that welcomes visitors at the entrance.
L'étrange cité, by Ilya Kabakov (detail)
Monumenta - Grand Palais, 2014
The Strange City appears right after that: a serious of small Mediterranean houses, connected between each other.
L'étrange cité, by Ilya Kabakov (detail)
Monumenta - Grand Palais, 2014
LL'étrange cité, by Ilya Kabakov (detail)
Monumenta - Grand Palais, 2014
The first one: an art-less museum…
L'étrange cité, by Ilya Kabakov (detail)
Monumenta - Grand Palais, 2014
In another house, the artworks are actually different kinds of doors (painted, carved, etc.) and installations done by mixing them. The artists refer to them poetically as:
- What let's us go out but not in...
- Something we never see as kids, but which, at the end, appears so very often...
- Time goes by, but they remain, motionless...
L'étrange cité, by Ilya Kabakov (detail)
Monumenta - Grand Palais, 2014
L'étrange cité, by Ilya Kabakov (detail)
Monumenta - Grand Palais, 2014
L'étrange cité, by Ilya Kabakov (detail)
Monumenta - Grand Palais, 2014
L'étrange cité, by Ilya Kabakov (detail)
Monumenta - Grand Palais, 2014
One of the other houses recreates the Utopian city of Manas, north of Tibet (it existed only in the imagination of its creators, fascinated by the legends of the kingdom of Shambhala). The city had two levels: one, that of everyday life on Earth; the other, in touch with the spiritual world (cosmos). A connection between the two levels occurred when the inhabitants climbed up to the peaks of the 8 high mountains that circled the city. There they would receive cosmic energy, they would interact with alien civilisations or reach the Garden of Eden.
L'étrange cité, by Ilya Kabakov (detail)
Monumenta - Grand Palais, 2014
The same city would reflect itself in the sky on certain days: the terrenal Manas was an exact copy of the celestial Manas...
L'étrange cité, by Ilya Kabakov (detail)
Monumenta - Grand Palais, 2014
The visit continues, full of spirituality, in a house dedicated to the encounter of an angel. The artists propose:
“Encountering an angel in real life is virtually impossible. Nothing more far from truth. Extreme circumstances always help such encounter, specially those critic moments in a person's life. It's up to us the create the situation for such meeting".
L'étrange cité, by Ilya Kabakov (detail)
Monumenta - Grand Palais, 2014
To meet the angel, the spiritual person in need of the him/her builds a stair to the sky...
L'étrange cité, by Ilya Kabakov (detail)
Monumenta - Grand Palais, 2014
And the angel comes to him…
L'étrange cité, by Ilya Kabakov (detail)
Monumenta - Grand Palais, 2014
The installation refers in a way to those masterpieces of Renaissance, in which angels occupied the top half (the celestial one) of the canvas, as can be seen in the Santa Conversación by Niccolo Pisano or The Birth of the Virgin by Jacob van Oostanen.
Although it seems nostalgic, according to Emilia Kabakov, the exhibition is not about nostalgia, but about cultural heritage and the memories of the past. Memories that not only belong to her and Ilya, but to all the people of the world.
Ilya Kabalov was born in Russia 81 years ago and nowadays he lives and works in the US. Emilia is his wife, collaborator and a very talented artist too.
0 comentarios