La tour d'or blanc
Jean-Michel Othoniel
Mediator - Eric Foucault
Supporters - Fondation de France, ville d’Amboise, Les vign’ amboisiennes
Quartier du bout des ponts, Amboise, Indre-et-Loire, France, en cours, phase d’étude technique
The context
A group of winegrowers from the Amboise region have asked Christian Guyon, mayor of Amboise, to promote the presence of Touraine-Amboise appellation wine, in particular by installing a work of art. Concerned about the artistic quality of the Ambois heritage, the mayor wanted this artistic commission to be entrusted to a recognized contemporary artist. The sculpture will have to be installed on the roundabout at the end of Marshal Leclerc's bridge. She will talk about viticulture. The relatively short traffic conditions around the roundabout imply an obvious reading of the evocation of wine through the work, which should signal and bring a strong identity to the district at the end of bridges and between bridges. It will be able to evoke the metallurgical industrial past of the district, the first wine presses were created there. The roundabout is currently equipped with a candelabra with two bulbs providing extensive lighting on the square. This floor lamp can be removed or moved. In this case, the artistic project must take into account the need for lighting on the square, as light can be one of the characteristics of the work.
The commission
Eternal Network proposed to entrust this commission to the artist Jean-Michel Othoniel who, for the past ten years or so, has been making public commissions. Particularly attentive to the context in which he works, the artist succeeds, through his works, in creating new narratives, small enchanting fictions capable of transfiguring the place, giving it a new identity.
Jean-Michel Othoniel
Born in 1964 in Saint-Etienne, lives and works in Paris (France). He has gradually invented an imaginary universe with multiple aspects (drawings, sculptures, photographs, writings, choreographies or videos), and within which the reversible qualities of the objects that surround us must be fully accepted.