“This place was created for the pleasure of sharing what I love with as many people as possible. I prefer the word “share” to word “transmit”. That is why I like accessible works. Art needs to speak.”
Edouard Carmignac
At first, there was a farm, seen in “Pierrot le fou”, the Jean-Luc Godard movie. In the 1980s, Henri Vidal, an architect and inventor of reinforced earth, transformed the farm into a villa. Invited to the wedding of one of his daughters, Édouard Carmignac fell in love with the estate. He subsequently imagined turning it into a place dedicated to the arts. This project has unfolded over the last few years, thanks to the involvement of Atelier Barani for the design, and the GMAA agency for the project’s adaptation and extension.
The Villa Carmignac is set at the heart of a National Park and on a listed site. Additional construction is not authorized on the land. The entire project has thus consisted of clearing 2,000 square meters of space beneath the surface, without modifying the house’s contours or the existing landscape.
Inside the villa, the spaces expand and extend in the shape of a cross. In the center, an
aquatic ceiling lets in natural light and illuminates these underwater spaces. The visitor walks freely around voluminous spaces marked by visual openings onto the vineyards.
In technical terms, the building meets all of the museum standards, in a sober design that fits into the landscape, enabling the Villa Carmignac to welcome the best works under optimal conditions.
The Villa
The Villa's permanent works
Miquel Barceló
Born in Felanitx, Spain, 1957
Alycastre, 2018
“...Everyone can recognise themselves in a skull”.
The guardian of the Villa, the monumental sculpture Alycastre was inspired by a local legend. The story goes that a terrifying sea monster, sent by the god Poseidon to wreak havoc on the island, was defeated by Odysseus during his wanderings. Miquel Barceló’s sculpted version evokes both a creature with flippers and a disturbing skull, a reference to the 16th century pirate past of Porquerolles. A bronze version of a model sculpted by the artist, it seems to have been brought to the surface after a long immersion in the depths of the sea.
Miquel Barceló
Born in Felanitx, Spain, 1957
Not yet titled, 2018
“I remember trying to draw and paint the sea all my life”.
Miquel Barceló, who likes to compare painting to freediving, considers the sea an extension of his studio. In this work, produced for the Villa Carmignac, the artist was inspired by the underwater caves and waters off the island of Porquerolles. His encounter with an octopus during a swim inspired this aquarium filled with krakens, giant squid and other cephalopods, evoking the earliest forms of life underwater. The canvas, which physically envelops the visitor, was produced using several layers of paint, to which Barceló added charcoal and pigments he made himself.
Bruce Nauman
Né en 1941 à Fort Wayne, États-Unis
One hundred fish fountain, 2005
“The true artist is an amazing luminous fountain”.
Comprising whitefish, salmon and catfish floating in the air, One Hundred Fish Fountain brings together the species caught by Bruce Nauman and his art dealer Donald Young in the Great Lakes region. The ninety- seven bronze fish, which spurt thin jets of water, recall the boyhood afternoons the artist spent fishing with his father. Alternating between 15-minute sequences of powerful, resounding streams and moments of almost silent dripping, the installation evokes the continuous cycle of life. It recalls one of Nauman’s earliest self- portraits: in 1966 he photographed himself spitting a jet of water, a humorous allusion to Marcel Duchamp’s renowned Fountain.
Janaina Mello Landini
Born in São Gotardo, Brasil, 1974
Ciclotrama 50 (wind), 2018
“This work invites you to paths unfolding and questioning unity. Here, the journey starts, to explore art’s infinite possibilities”.
Wind is part of the series of Ciclotramas, a neologism used by Janaina Mello Landini to describe the project she has been working on since 2010. It consists of a boat rope tied around a marble cleat. The organic installation, located at the entrance to the exhibition space, was conceived as an invitation to lose oneself in the depths of the building. The threads that comprise the work have been meticulously arranged in the space to keep the structure in tension: together they weave a poetic new space, evoking the root systems of plants or the nerve endings of the human body.
Tony Matelli
Born in Chicago, United States, 1971
