By Isabelle Turpin

Since their arrival at the former Laennec Hospital in 2016, Kering - an international French luxury group - has participated in the European Heritage Days. During the celebration of the heritage days, monuments across Europe that are normally closed to the public reopen their spaces. In this case, the Kering group reopens the historic hospital with a new collection of works from six artists. In Praise of Space unites Nairy Baghramian, Pier Paolo Calzolari, Trisha Donnelly, Anne Imhof, Mario Merz, and Danh Vo’s various works, highlighting a fascination with “passages” by using large, metaphorical abstractions to illustrate how form can change while roots remain. The chapel itself is minimal but beautiful; cream colored walls, symmetrical windows, and a barrel vaulted ceiling painted a solid shade of sky blue. The natural light of the chapel and high ceilings create an atmosphere that minimizes the size of the larger than life pieces making the viewer feel even smaller in comparison.

The first piece that caught my attention was located on the left side of the main hall of the church, the nave. Mario Merz’s piece, Se la forma scompare, la sua radice è eterna, resembles a large canvas frame with a fine mesh stretched over. The skeleton of the canvas is visible, and in the mesh are the words, “Se la forma scompare, la sua radice è eterna” (“While the form disappears, its root remains eternal”), in loose cursive lettering. The words are made up of blue neon tubing that glow out of the mesh screen, which eerily echo the blue of the church ceiling. The quote was inspired by a line from the Mystical Poems by thirteenth century poet Rumi, adding a mystical aspect into the motto.

On the opposite wall is Anne Imhof’s Untitled, 2017, a collection of three large gray aluminum plates. At first the plates appear to be painted with the same material, but only one is painted with oil paint. The other two were painted using a varnish typically used on the body of luxury cars. The ensemble of the three plates creates an illusion of depth, the varnish playing with the perception of color and opacity of the paint. In the process of creating this work, Imhof applied many layers of varnish, or “skins”, onto the surface of the palate. This adds to the illusion of surface and creates small pockets in between the layers that are suspended in time. The positioning of Untitled and Se la forma scompare, la sua radice è eterna is spatially important; the pieces, stationed on opposite walls, seem to stare at each other. This creates a noticeable contrast between them, Merz’s piece looking naked while baring itself structurally compared to Imhof’s imposing and almost guarded work. There is a dialogue of rigidity and change, the small layers trapped beneath the varnish staring at the glowing message of change.

Turning back to face the apex of the church you are faced with an ominous looking tryptic, made of large rectangular slabs of iron, copper and lead. The holy nature of a tryptic, its numeric symbolism (father, son, Holy Ghost), and its placement in the apse of the church paired with its brutalist aesthetic makes it a surreal altarpiece. The presence of natural elements is obvious as well: the center panel is lit vertically from tea candles placed at the bottom while the panels on either side are covered in frost, generated from a cooling machine. Calzolari uses Untitled (Altarpieces) to turn something otherworldly into a physical symbol, made up of earthly elements.

To the right of the triptych is Nairy Baghramian’s Scruff of the Neck (Stopgap), 2016, mounted on the wall. The piece resembles enormous but fractured braces. The title of the piece, size, and physical components (cold, twisted metal) create an intimidating aura while remaining vaguely familiar to anyone who has had braces and remembers the pain of corrective dentistry. The idea of “corrective” in relation to the exhibition space is intriguing, the rituals performed in a church are often meant to be clarifying, the idea of washing away - becoming better. I would argue that braces can serve the same purpose of fixing something physically, while the church acts like an intangible, spiritual corrector.

To the left and past the triptych is Danh Vo’s We the People (detail), 2011-2016, a very large section of a chain link made of hammered copper steel. We the People is a reference to the beginning of the American constitution, and the name of the massive collection of objects that the chain link is a part of. Two hundred and six pieces of the same size scale have been made by Danh Vo to recreate the fragmented body of the Statue of Liberty, notably 206 being the same number of bones in the human body. For Danh Vo, a Vietnamese born Danish artist, the idea of identity and freedom are intrinsic in his art. The chain, unrecognizable as part of a larger collective by itself, can be interpreted as a representative of the fragility of freedom and the dispersion of people across nations.

Behind We the People is Trisha Donnelly’s Untitled, 2017, a large slab of sandstone propped against the wall of the chapel. Sandstone is primarily quartz, a crystal that in some cultures is connected to the earthly presence of the divine, which is fitting for this piece’s interaction with the church's space. This work does not intend to introduce concepts to the viewer, but insteads confronts them with the piece’s totality in itself. Untitled by Trisha Donnelly is a blunt but fitting end to the collection of pieces shown in Laennec Hospital. After interpreting abstraction of self and space Untitled presents a message of simplicity and concrete form.

The space of the chapel, and more importantly what the space of the church implies -other worldliness, never ending space - reflects in the nature of the pieces. Some pieces are directly implying divinity through iconography, while others subtly imply this, appearing larger than life and inspiring the message of transcendence of physical form. These interpretations in dialogue with the space of the chapel allow for a unique atmosphere of self reflection and change, both physically and spiritually.

Works Cited

ÉLOGE DE L’ESPACE, www.kering.com/api/download-file/?path=LIVRET_PINAULT_COLLECTION_LAENNEC_JPATS_2024_038bfeb9c2.pdf.

“2024 Heritage Days.” 2024 Heritage Days, www.balenciaga.com/en-us/2024-heritage-days?srsltid=AfmBOorgPAbvkhZnXvHjVb1qnigurV0oKkEJQTwbRl9aaZ2MWyUTULh7. Accessed 10 Oct. 2024.

Exhibition at Hôpital Laennec: Relations Between Space and Spirituality