It's a bit like the offspring of an idyll between hard sciences and contemporary art.
A year after its reopening, Hangar Y is hosting its second exhibition until April 21: “Taking the sun”.
“The idea is to present projects from different disciplines, to bring periods and mediums into dialogue, to create bridges between art and science,” explains Aurélie Baron, one of the curators of the exhibition.
The proximity of the Paris observatory, which has three sites including one in Meudon, a few hundred meters away, fuels this event.
The sun is the artistic object and science, one of its many supports.
We start with dawn and end with dusk.
Between the two, around forty artists presented their vision of our star.
Meudon, February 2024. After decades of closure and enormous work, Hangar Y reopened to the public in March 2023.
Access to the exhibition via the East mezzanine begins with “Reaching sun”, a fabric installation by Anne Lindberg: yellow and white cotton threads pulled and stretched between two white walls.
Airy, the whole with pearly reflections cannot leave you indifferent.
As you walk, in paint or fabrics, it is above all the warm colors of the works that attract the eye.
Certain works will be more appreciated by lovers of contemporary art than popular science.
A not-so-futuristic agricultural experience…
And then around a wall, we come across “The Event Horizon” by Abdelkader Benchamma.
“In astrophysics, the event horizon defines the hypothetical contours of a black hole, the same one that absorbs everything, including light,” says the exhibition booklet.
In black and white, this 2.5 meter long ink triptych gives off an impression of violence and propels you into a comic book visual.
Meudon, February 2024. “The event horizon”, an ink triptych by Abdelkader Benchamma, takes the viewer closer to black holes.
The photos that follow, taken with techniques as advanced as they are varied, take the visitor closer to the sun.
“Orders were placed with artists so that they could draw inspiration from the world of the observatory,” explains Aurélie Baron.
Time to go back down to the hangar space and the exhibition continues on the west mezzanine with the sunset as the horizon.
This time, the sun is, according to the organizers, an “object of domination”.
No doubt, but pain too.
Impossible to find the photos of “Illustrated people” by Thomas Mailaender beautiful: negatives were stuck on “models”, which were then exposed by a UV lamp.
The result is images embedded in the skin in the middle of sunburns that make you shudder with pain.
Aesthetes may appreciate it.
Meudon, February 2024. Artificial sun, computer-controlled agriculture: this square meter of wheat will be harvested at the end of the exhibition.
A little further, between art, agriculture and physics, we discover the “Life support system” of the Disnovation.org collective.
In a glass cage, under violet light, a square meter of wheat grows.
Essential supplies, water, heat, light, nutrients, are controlled artificially.
It gives an idea of what is feasible under a biosphere.
“The wheat will have grown during the time of the exhibition.
It will be harvested at the end,” specifies Aurélie Baron.
If the scenography is reminiscent of science fiction films, we are now in science more than fiction.
Meudon, February 2024. End of album, end of visit, the exhibition “Taking the Sun” ends with a bubble of lightness.
Finally, after a wall studded with photos of sunsets, illustrating what social networks constantly trivialize, the route ends on a comic strip in the form of a wink, a bubble of lightness: Lucky Luke walking away , alone in the setting sun.
End of the album, end of the exhibition.
“Taking the sun” exhibition until April 21, at Hangar Y, 9, avenue de Trivaux, in Meudon.
Information, opening hours (weekends, public holidays and holidays) and prices (free, 7 and 10 euros) on
hangar-y.com
.