Céleste Boursier-Mougenot: points de suspension” exhibition

Céleste Boursier-Mougenot, a sculptor and musician who is a key figure on the French and international art scenes, has been building up a rich body of work for over thirty years, where music, movement and the elements meet. He distils sound, extracts its potential from objects not designed to produce it, and creates situations that are traps for listening and daydreaming, devices where minimalism and sophistication intertwine.
At the invitation of the Frac Normandie and the Normandie Impressionniste festival, the artist is proposing a generous project that echoes the architecture of the former 17th-century convent that houses the Frac. It invites us to reflect on garden space, the perception of landscape and play.

In the courtyard of the cloister, reminiscent of the bandstands of yesteryear, the sound sculpture Envolée has been erected, a round of eight swings surmounted by as many old church bells, whose rhythmic swinging by the visitor makes them resonate.

Swinging is a game or ritual that has spanned the centuries, from ancient Egypt to 17th-century French gardens. A symbol of springtime renewal, it is also seen as an element marking the passage from childhood to adulthood. "envolée" is linked to the work "plage", a vast 900m2 expanse of glass. Like a crystal lake with rippling and transparent effects, everyone is invited to project themselves into it and wander around. The bells here become a jubilant sound object, redeploying their poignant timbre in the heart of this arid, glittering garden to form an open-air score.

While the landscape outside can be contemplated from the courtyard, the experience continues inside the building with the work "cameraobscura": based on the principle of the optical device of the darkroom, here enlarged to the scale of the exhibition room, the artist literally reverses the horizon before the visitor's very eyes. Visitors can (re)sit for a moment on swings suspended from the roof structure, and discover how the sound of the bells also reveals the image. Transported, they find themselves with the sky under their feet, contemplating this fresco of an inverted landscape in reverse.

Revisiting in her own way the subject of light and its vibration, so dear to the Impressionists, Céleste Boursier-Mougenot offers an experience that is both highly contemporary and timeless.

• Free for all