PERCEPTIONS #3 – Arts and Science at the Abbadia Castle
Space takes the form of how I see things. — Hubert Reeves, astrophysicist
Until November 2nd, 2016, the Observatory Castle of Abbadia (Route de la corniche, Hendaye) offers a new way of discovering the Basque landscape through the exhibit PERCEPTIONS #3 — Arts and Science. Three visual artists from the artist agency Kersa — Juan Aizpitarte, Héléna Bertaud and Eric Michel — have been working inside the Castle and in the park surrounding it on the theme of the perception of landscape. An exceptional site, along the steep cliffs of Hendaye, in the middle of the moor, which has allowed these three artists to reflect on light, space and time and to create three site specific works.
Juan Aizpitarte, VARIACIONES – Horizonte metafisico
Basque Spanish artist Juan Aizpitarte’s installation is composed of four elements, strategically located throughout the park. These three devices evoke a camera obscura allowing visitors to experience the landscape by manipulating and playing with these rotating colored boxes anchored to the ground with a metallic rod. One thus discovers new perspectives, cuts out the landscape, finds the horizon, frames the Rhune and looks for the sky. The nearby castle almost disappears. The landscape becomes abstract. Everyone finds his/her own narrative.
Héléna Bertaud, NADIR – Midi à minuit
As soon as one approaches Héléna Bertaud’s work, a dialogue between movement, light and space occurs. Soon under the spell of the play of the mirrors’ reflections on stone, the visitor enters a device evocative of the cosmos and galaxies by its form and by the layout of the elements — stones and mirrors — which instinctively suggest movement. The visitor ends up moving from one stone to the next along straight lines, tracing circumferences with his/her body, leaning close to the ground midway along the invisible path between the center and one of the stones delineating the installation in order to capture the infinite or to catch an image on the mirrors’ surfaces. An observation device where movement leads to a new perception of the landscape, which goes well beyond what surrounds the visitor.
Eric Michel, ARGIA – La lumière-langage
ARGIA (light in Basque language), which is the only installation located in the Observatory, is a work that reflects on light and perception. For Eric Michel, light is the ideal medium to navigate between material and immaterial, real and unreal. “In the process of creation what matters to me is the search for resonance, vibration, for pure sensitivity which can occur at any given moment through any given medium.” Upon entering the rooms where the work is displayed, the visitor also enters the work itself, becomes immersed in it. Light then becomes the mean of communication of the language of perception.
PERCEPTION#3 EXPLORATIONS SENSIBLES
Château Observatoire Abbadia
Horaires 14h -18h
Route de la Corniche, Hendaye
chateau-abbadia.fr
