Amazing new images are emerging of Olafur Eliasson’s project at the Palace of Versailles. His enormous fountain installation is in part influenced by the 15th century French monarch Louise XIV’s landscape architect André Le Notre, who had originally planned to have a water feature in the garden that never saw the light of day. Eliasson has spoken about reinvigorating the “engineering ingenuity of the past… It is as constructed as the court was, and I've left the construction open for all to see—a seemingly foreign element that expands the scope of human imagination.”
The President of the Palace of Versailles, Catherine Pegard, has spoken about the artist who plays with light making “the contours of the Sun-King’s palace dance.” The artist is well-known for his monumental installations that explore environmental issues, perception as well as light.
Since 2008 the Palace of Versailles has hosted a number of exhibitions including Jeff Koons in 2008 and Anish Kapoor in 2015. These artists have all created a special dialog between their works and Palace of Versailles.
In a recent press conference Eliasson stated: “The Versailles that I have been dreaming up is a place that empowers everyone. It invites visitors to take control of the authorship of their experience instead of simply consuming and being dazzled by the grandeur. It asks them to exercise their senses, to embrace the unexpected, to drift through the gardens, and to feel the landscape take shape through their movement.”
The exhibition will run from the 6th of June through to the 30th October 2016.
