The Toulouse Art Festival is a festival with a difference: under the stewardship of a new director, trends are out, and artist and setting are back in. This is not a statement of the direction that art is going, but rather an exploration of the artists’ journeys, and a celebration of the city which has invited them to exhibit in its most sacred spaces.
Under the motto The Artist Comes First, a heavyweight international committee of organisers, including Tate Britain’s Penelope Curtis, has been set up to oversee the festival’s future, and a similarly diverse selection of artists were asked to study the French city’s waterfront area for inspiration. The result is a collection of work, both old and new, set in museums and monasteries, in townhouses and on the riverbank, representing sculpture, painting, video and architecture. One of the most important pieces comes from the architectural mathematician Buckminster Fuller, whose 50 Foot Fly’s Eye Dome – one of the last examples of the visionary’s career – has landed by the river, coming alive at night when the lights go up.
Emmanuel Van der Meulen,
Grand Métier I-V,
crédit Nicolas Brasseur,
Festival international
d’art de Toulouse, 2013
Lindsay Seers,
One of Many, 2013,
crédit Nicolas Brasseur,
Festival international
d’art de Toulouse, 2013
Julian Rosefeldt,
My home is a dark and cloudhung land, 2011,
crédit Nicolas Brasseur,
Festival international
d’art de Toulouse, 2013
Buckminster Fuller,
50 Foot Fly’s Eye Dome, 1980,
crédit Nicolas Brasseur,
Festival international
d’art de Toulouse, 2013
Tony Smith,
Cigarette 1961,
vue de l’exposition , Les Abattoirs,
crédit Nicolas Brasseur,
Festival international
d’art de Toulouse, 2013
Lindsay Seers,
One of Many, 2013,
crédit Nicolas Brasseur,
Festival international
d’art de Toulouse, 2013
Howard Hodgkin,
After Vuillard, 1996-2002,
crédit Nicolas Brasseur,
Festival international
d’art de Toulouse, 2013
Emmanuel Van der Meulen,
Objet Métier VII-X,
crédit Nicolas Brasseur,
Festival international
d’art de Toulouse, 2013
Buckminster Fuller,
50 Foot Fly’s Eye Dome, 1980,
crédit Nicolas Brasseur,
Festival international
d’art de Toulouse, 2013
Emmanuel Van der Meulen,
Grand Métier I-V,
crédit Nicolas Brasseur,
Festival international
d’art de Toulouse, 2013
Julian Rosefeldt,
My home is a dark and cloudhung land, 2011,
crédit Nicolas Brasseur,
Festival international
d’art de Toulouse, 2013
