Art & Architecture
article | Reading time7 min
Strolling through the shade of the Petit-Parc's tall trees, you may come across two bronze giants hidden in a grove. These monumental figures are the work of Gérard Garouste. Discover their long and eventful journey to Saint-Cloud!
The work under the microscope
A long-term project
In the mid-1980s, the French government commissioned several artists to create a series of sculptures for the courtyard, galleries and garden of the Palais-Royal in Paris. Painter and sculptor Gérard Garouste created a monumental work, comprising two figures and thirty-two bronze stakes, to be displayed in the garden beds. However, once completed, the sculpted group was never installed in its intended location.
For many years, proposals for new locations followed one another without success. In 2009, the artist was finally offered the Domaine National de Saint-Cloud. He rethought his installation and made new proposals for the staging of the work in relation to the chosen site, a former green room built in the 18th century in the Petit-Parc, below the château's terrace.
Eric Sander
Adapting the work
Originally conceived for the open spaces of the Palais-Royal, the presence of the thirty-two piles was called into question by the presence of gigantic trees. To highlight their presence, Gérard Garouste chose to place the two figures opposite each other on a circular terrace 6 m in diameter, decorated with bronze bas-reliefs. The shape echoes that of the Bassin de Saint-Jean and the surrounding green room.
The work was inaugurated on May 23, 2013, almost thirty years after its creation!
Caroline Rose
The Sun and the Indian
Behind the title Le Défi du soleil lie two characters born of a dream the artist had when he was thirty: the Classic and the Indian. In Gérard Garouste's personal mythology, there are always two opposing forces, which some would call Apollo and Dionysus, others Reason and the Unconscious. "I wanted a solar character, the Classic, and an earthy, vegetable, bucolic character, the Indian. It's their complementarity that interests me.
The two figures face each other. Between them, a truncated column bearing a question, the Latin word QUID. The solar figure proposes a game for his opponent to decipher. The challenge is to see if the Indian, thanks to his intuition, the freedom of his imagination and the cunning of his mind, can grasp the rule.
Caroline Rose
A riddle to decode
"I imagine a walker discovering this installation... Intrigued by the symbols fixed on the bronze crown, he'll try to guess the relationship between the four hands and the three attributes (cube, sphere, cone) and understand the rule. It's a game of observation based on curiosity, where the only rule is to find the logic.
By returning to the symbolic and allegorical dimension, Le Défi du soleil recaptures the aesthetic imaginary of the groves that surround it: order and surprise at once opposites and allies.
Come and take up the artist's challenge!
