New outdoor artwork, in partnership with Gassendi Museum, within the frame of the operation “le musée sort de ses murs”, supported by the Ministry of Culture.

Col of the second day

Richard Nonas

Cousson Mountain (near Entrages village)
Opening, 13 July 2019

This alignment of seventy-seven heavy oak beams installed in the valley between two mountain peaks of Cousson. The artwork is itself the “col”, the passage between those separate places. Nonas emphasizes the power of an intermediary space between the peaks, the gap that opens the way to a new reality.

His use of simple shapes and materials, set in the continuity of that expansive mountain space, brings us back to the essence of the place itself. The artwork, echos the scale of the mountain. Nonas isn’t interested
in his objects as such, but rather in what they are able to provoke through their interaction with their environment.

The potentially infinite repetition of its wooden units moves us through and along them, evoking the invisible connections that link our own mountain stories and beliefs to the past and present inhabitants of these mountains and the complex lives they have lived there.

The choice of this particular place increases that symbolic evocation. Cousson is the mountain towering over the town of Digne-les-Bains, where is located Samten Dzong (Reflection Residence in Tibetan), the home of the writer and explorer Alexandra David-Neel. Her deep lifelong spiritual quest was itself linked to the grandure, the power and the silence of the mountain lands.

 

(c)Richard Nonas

 

Opening of Col of the second day – hiking on the Cousson mountain

8h Meeting for trekking depart: Gassendi high school (Digne-les-Bains). 3 hours walking, intermediate level

or

9h Meeting for trekking depart: Entrages village. 2 hours walking, intermediate level

à 12h Pic-nic at Cousson mountain.

[Skilled walker, get hiking shoes and 2 litres of water per person. Picnic backpack.]

In attendance of the artist.

Evoking this outdoor sculpture, Richard Nonas stretches his oak-wood line down the length of the large landscape paintings room of Gassendi Museum: Col of the half-opened door (2019).
Opening Friday 12 July, 18h

For more informations : www.musee-gassendi.org

(c) Jean-Baptiste Warluzel

This project was supported by : Ministry of Culture (Direction Régionale des Affaires Culturelles Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, Service des arts plastiques), Digne-les-Bains municipality.
The artwork Col of the second day is offered by Richard Nonas and Fergus McCaffrey gallery to Gassendi Museum. 
Her installation was supported by the Ministry of Culture, within the frame of the action « Le musée sort de ses murs – 2018 ».

 Gassendi Museum and Cairn art center would like to thank :
Valentine De Badereau De Saint-Martin for Fergus McCaffrey Gallery (New York);
 Denis Boudin, Pierre Lagier, Anthony Mayenc, Sebastien Bailly, Guillaume Payan – Provence Alpes Agglomération; Celebration Service of  Digne-les-Bains municipality; 
Yvan Théaudin, Pierre Paillat, Luc Richard – Art en chemin association – Jean-Claude Magaud, participating to the artwork production ; Entrages municipality, l’Office National des Forêts and Stéphane Beridon (GAEC béridon) for authorisations ;
 Jean-Baptiste Warluzel for the video about the project.

Have been participated to the production : Eric Klein – coordinator ; hélisaF enterprise.