From 20 to 25 September 2017, Pablo Reinoso will present an installation of seven sculptures as a part of his Spaghetti Benches series, specially made for the city of Bordeaux on the Miroir d’Eau.
Drawing on the theme of “landscape” chosen by the Agora biennale and the grand cultural season of the city, Pablo Reinoso imagined the installation L’Observatoire du Ciel (The Sky Observatory) which the public is invited to take part in.
Pablo Reinoso designed a visual and poetic reversal of the landscape through the reflections of the sky on the Miroir d’Eau. The artist creates an infinite scenery in which the physical landmarks are turned on their heads.
This manipulation of the boundaries between land and water result in three forms, the fog, the water-mirror, and empty. The installation is the opportunity to see the city as if from the imagination.
First, the mist of water rises, and the city disappears. Sitting on the sculptures, the audience becomes part of the clouds. Second, the fog descends and leaves the mirror reflecting the sky.
The benches then offer them a seat inside the blue, a break in the landscape, to rest their feet in the sky. Finally, the Miroir d’Eau dissipates and reveals the famous “place de la Bourse.”
Pablo Reinoso started the Spaghetti Benches series in 2006, taking the anonymous design of a public wooden-slatted park bench as his point of inspiration for this series. He takes the object and opens up the field of possibilities in giving life to the bench, which goes beyond its original form and freely unfolds in space.
The elevation is an essential step in Pablo Reinoso’s work. Gérard Wacjman describes Pablo Reinoso’s climbing, tentacle-like, moving pieces as “tree-like objects” in the artist’s recently published monograph with 5 Continents Editions publishing house.
With these sculptures, Pablo Reinoso calls into question the concepts that take over the object’s original function and “exceeds its own nature,” making the public bench a place for meeting, conversing and for everyday life.
The first Spaghetti sculptures were made in wood but, concerned about the sculpture’s durability, and with a desire to work on a larger scale, Pablo Reinoso turned toward using metal as an artistic medium.
The benches presented on the Miroir d’Eau in the city of Bordeaux have been specially conceived for the occasion, in painted steel. Source and photos, Courtesy of Comminicart for Pablo Reinoso.
