The Dutch artist made one of his creatures evolve on Friday, advancing thanks to the force of the wind, on the Bordeaux water mirror.
The city hosts from Saturday, the first major exhibition in France dedicated to this 74-year-old creator.
The "wind sculptor" draws his inspiration from various fields, ranging from aeronautics to robotics, via mathematics.
A small moment of grace and poetry.
Dutch artist Theo Jansen advanced one of his famous “Strandbeests” on the Bordeaux water mirror on Friday.
And even in the face of the whims of his creature, the star of the 2022 edition of the Festival international des arts de Bordeaux (FAB), never dismantled, always keeping a smile.
Videos of his "beach beasts" moving only thanks to the force of the wind, by the sea in The Hague (Netherlands), have gone around the world.
In terms of the wind that day, the edge of the Garonne did not offer the same breath that one can usually find on the North Sea coast, and Theo Jansen spent most of his time pulling him -even the beast at the four corners of the Bordeaux monument.
Whatever, in the moments when the creature decided to move on its own, reflected in the water mirror with the Place de la Bourse in the background, the show was simply magical.
Dutch sculptor artist Theo Jansen introduces Bordeaux residents to one of his Strandbeests this Friday morning ahead of the exhibition dedicated to him in the gardens of #Bordeaux town hall pic.twitter.com/XmBAzdgvQU
– 20minutesbordeaux (@20minutesbord) September 30, 2022
Access to this content has been blocked to respect your choice of consent
By clicking on "
I ACCEPT
", you accept the deposit of cookies by external services and will thus have access to the content of our partners
I ACCEPT
And to better remunerate 20 Minutes, do not hesitate to accept all cookies, even for one day only, via our "I accept for today" button in the banner below.
More information on the Cookie Management Policy page.
The 74-year-old Dutch artist, who now limits his travels for environmental reasons, exceptionally made the trip to Bordeaux this weekend, to inaugurate the first major exhibition dedicated to him in France.
It opens on Saturday, in the gardens of the town hall and at the Museum of Fine Arts, as part of the FAB.
An artist "straddling his carbon footprint"
"This is the first time that he has exhibited on this scale in our country, and I am very happy that Bordeaux is hosting him, assures the mayor of Bordeaux Pierre Hurmic, who came to attend the demonstration on the water mirror. .
What he does is very innovative, and I'm convinced that the people of Bordeaux will appreciate this show.
In addition, the artist is fascinating, and I am all the more honored to welcome him to Bordeaux as he is quite stingy when it comes to travel, because he is very strict about his carbon footprint.
»
Theo Jansen, nicknamed the "wind sculptor", is a former engineer who draws his artistic inspiration from various fields, ranging from aeronautics to robotics, via mathematics.
A work so interdisciplinary, and cross-border, that it even had the honor of an episode of The Simpsons!
Designed to warn about global warming, his "Strandbeests", skeletons made from plastic tubes, and whose movements reproduce the steps of animals, have been produced in more than forty copies, in twenty-five years, and divide into several large families.
Creatures that evolve over time, according to the words of the artist himself.
"I hope that at the end of my life, he slips, these beasts will be able to live by themselves on the beaches where they were born..."
“Strandbeests, The new generation” exhibition
, until January 1, 2023.
Company
Loire-Atlantique: Star of Google Street View, the Serpent d'Océan "is even more beautiful in real life"
Bordeaux
Bordeaux: The giant sculpture "Sanna" will stay five more years at Place de la Comédie
Culture
Exposure
Artist
Bordeaux
Gironde
Aquitaine