Prendre le Soleil
Hangar Y
Meudon, France
December 16, 2023 – April 21, 2024
Curated by Aurelie Baron, Luce Lebart and Marta Ponza
The exhibition Seizing the Sun explores the fascination this star holds for contemporary artists. Works by visual artists, photographers, musicians and video artists will be displayed side by side with scientific imagery.
Each expresses the potency or the ambivalence of the sun, which has been and remains a major and boundless source of inspiration. From photography to performance, including sculpture, drawing, embroidery, writing and video, every medium is explored to approach this unreachable star, to observe it, seize it and imagine it, in order to represent it.
This exhibition is dedicated to lovers of contemporary art and astronomy buffs alike, to amateurs of sunsets and those who simply enjoy the sun.
For its second exhibition, Hangar Y is delighted to collaborate with an institutional partner, the Observatoire de Paris - PSL. Located next to Hangar Y and working jointly with the Paris Observatory since 1926, the Meudon Observatory was one of the first devoted to astrophysics. It was founded in 1876 by Jules Janssen, an astronomer with a passion for photography and the Sun. Involved in top-level research since the late 19th century, the Observatory is historically dedicated to daily observations of the Sun.
The dialogue between art and science has given rise to an artistic collaboration project: three artists have been invited to create original pieces inspired by the Sun. At the intersection of science and sensory pleasure, these works bring together artists and scientists, beauty and knowledge around a shared taste for research and creation.
From Tacita Dean's green ray, to the multiple digital suns collected on Flickr by Penelope Umbrico, to astronomer Jules Janssen's sunspot photographs, Hangar Y's new exhibition offers a luminous and sensitive journey through the works of modern and contemporary artists and scientific and vernacular images.
Our sun is so familiar and everyday that we sometimes forget about it. In fact, it's no longer just its light that punctuates and invades our lives, as some artists point out, but the electric light from lamps and screens. Falsely associated with global warming, the Sun is sometimes unloved and feared. Its heat reminds us of the sublime mystery of its burning consistency. The sun's burns, its blows, its traces and its effects activate artists' imaginations, as do its ambivalences, without which life on Earth would not exist: the sun warms but embitters; it illuminates while dazzling...
The contradiction inherent in this star is reminiscent of François de La Rochefoucauld's famous maxim: "Neither the sun nor death can be stared at". The abstract, vibrant photographs of a whole new generation of photographers, fascinated by the effect of the sun's rays on sensitive surfaces, "draw" with the star, reviving the experiments of the inventors of photography and cinema. A sensitive exploration of the sun through the eyes of artists.
Some artists take a humorous approach to the motif of the sunset, hijacking it as they go, while others gaze in delight at the sublime moment of eternity when the moon "rises" and the sun disappears. Night falls softly, and darkness deepens. Plunged into darkness, the sun is still there, but not exactly here. At the origin of numerous cults, the divine and mystical power of the sun is a rich source of inspiration for artists who question our need for transcendence.
Artists
Guillaume Aubry - Mustapha Azeroual - Abdelkader Benchamma - Jean Claracq - Caroline Corbasson - Raphaël Dallaporta - Tacita Dean - Disnovation.org - Rachel Duckhouse - Samuel Fosso - Léon Foucault - Fragmentin - Erwan Frotin - Marina Gadonneix - Noémie Goudal - Laurent Grasso - Jules Janssen - Anne Lindberg - Colectivo Los Ingradìvos - Thomas Mailaender - Massao Mascaro - Peter Miller - Desire Moheb-Zandi - Morris - Martin Parr - Joan Rabascall - Sébastien Reuzé - Simon Roberts - Ludmila Rodrigues & Mike Rijnierse - Dagoberto Rodriguez - Charles Ross - Camille Sauvageot - SMITH - Stéphanie Solinas - Sun Ra & his Arkestra - Clara de Tezanos - Laure Tiberghien - Étienne Léopold Trouvelot - Penelope Umbrico - Gwenola Wagon
