2013 art season

As the first Centre for Arts to focus on the link between artistic creation and nature, the Domain of Chaumont-sur-Loire is once more inviting visual artists and photographers to come and capture the spirit of the estate in 2013.

The commissions received from the artists (all of the works on display at Chaumont-sur-Loire are created specially for the Domain) bestow a fresh dimension upon the Château and grounds – emotionally charged and brimming with aesthetic discovery. Each guest artist experiments with new materials, situations and contexts.

Designed specifically for the areas chosen by the artists, these sensitive works communicate intimately with the trees, stones and visitors’ imaginations.

The famous British sculptor David Nash has dreamt up an original work for Chaumont located near the Château and designed an installation for the monument’s princely apartments. Taking possession of trees and branches from the Domaine’s historic grounds, like him, the Austrian artist Armin Schubert has invented astonishing, meticulously sculpted barrows. Klaus Pinter, who also harks from Austria, has, for his part, placed a Surrealist sphere under the Stables Canopy, encircled with a golden shell of magnolia leaves. Turning the architecture of the Riding School to good account, he has erected a unique and fascinating floating, translucent sculpture within – playing with the breath of life and puffs of wind. As for Eva Jospin, she presents visitors with strange, dramatic forests made out of cardboard in the Château. The great Italian architect and designer Andrea Branzi, meanwhile, has designed a mysterious sacred chamber for the Prés du Goualoup, an inaccessible retreat woven from glass and branches. Not far from there the Japanese artist Fujiko Nakaya has sculpted the mist and the breeze a stone’s throw from a grove of dainty birches. Michel Gérard draws our attention to water and the scarcity of this precious resource near the Domain’s Water Tower, with its metal structures inspired by water tanks – well-known to the New-Yorker he has become. Photographers and video-makers have just as much to offer in this endless game between art and nature being played out at Chaumont-sur-Loire and also treat us to works on view for the very first time: singular and stirring images of Japanese gardens taken by Claude Lefèvre, fascinating Loire landscapes refined to the point of abstraction by Nicolas Lenartowski and unbelievable flowers painted by Jacques du Sordet. The poetic videos by American artist Jeffrey Blondes paint all of the lights and colours of the seasons, taking us on a wholly unaccustomed journey of depth and unhurriedness.

Last but not least, right until the end of 2013 the Domaine is proud to be showcasing 72 stained-glass windows by Sarkis, created specially for the Château de Chaumont-sur-Loire as part of a special commission from the Centre Region.