A few steps from the Mauvoisin hotel
Land Art is a contemporary art movement which involves the use of natural materials to create works intended for outdoor exhibition. Michael Heizer, born in California in 1944, is undoubtedly one of the best known artists within this new trend, and his works are exhibited all over the world. In the Val de Bagnes, his work entitled “Tangential Circular Negative Line Sculpture” is on show close to the Mauvoisin Hotel at the foot of the dam.
Tangential Circular Negative Line, created in 2012, is the Land Art pioneer's largest intervention outside the United States. The work has its origins in a sign drawn by the artist on his motorbike in the heart of the Nevada desert in 1968. Ephemeral at the time, the sign found a home in Mauvoisin where it could be perpetuated.
The work in Corten steel comprises three circles: a large circle 22.9 metres in diameter and two other circles, each half the size, one inside the large circle and the other outside. The perimeters of each circle are formed by trenches 60cm wide and 60cm deep, the edges of which are also made of steel. The sculpture was placed on a surface made of white rubble, the residue of one of the materials used to produce the concrete for the construction of the dam wall.
The industrial material asserts the contemporary aesthetic of a radical intervention in and on the landscape. A sculpture in negative, the work is defined by the emptiness that it integrates in an essential way. In contrast, it invites us to re-examine our surroundings, in particular the solid volumes that surround it. Through its geometry, it establishes a dialogue with the forms of nature.
This work is the first to be produced by the Fondation Air & Art.
Free admission. Open during the summer.
Tangential Circular Negative Line, created in 2012, is the Land Art pioneer's largest intervention outside the United States. The work has its origins in a sign drawn by the artist on his motorbike in the heart of the Nevada desert in 1968. Ephemeral at the time, the sign found a home in Mauvoisin where it could be perpetuated.
The work in Corten steel comprises three circles: a large circle 22.9 metres in diameter and two other circles, each half the size, one inside the large circle and the other outside. The perimeters of each circle are formed by trenches 60cm wide and 60cm deep, the edges of which are also made of steel. The sculpture was placed on a surface made of white rubble, the residue of one of the materials used to produce the concrete for the construction of the dam wall.
The industrial material asserts the contemporary aesthetic of a radical intervention in and on the landscape. A sculpture in negative, the work is defined by the emptiness that it integrates in an essential way. In contrast, it invites us to re-examine our surroundings, in particular the solid volumes that surround it. Through its geometry, it establishes a dialogue with the forms of nature.
This work is the first to be produced by the Fondation Air & Art.
Free admission. Open during the summer.
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