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The exhibition
Conceived as a series of sequences to be discovered until January 2025, L'Alignement des grandes distances unfolds in dialogue with the volume and transparency of the space, in a rhythm evoking the course of the Sun, the cycle of the Moon and the rotations of the Earth. Éric Gouret, who was born in Saint Nazaire in 1971 and lives and works in Nantes, was invited to create an installation for this space, in line with the seasons and the meteorological elements that punctuate them.
His installations, presented over periods of one-and-a-half to two months, are composed of sculptures, drawings and paintings, and offer themselves as a succession of shaped scenes. Their title evokes the space that surrounds and transcends us.
The adhesive drawings on the walls exploit the light, revealing different shades of color depending on the viewpoint and time of day. Each element marks the passage of time. As for the installations, they vary according to sequence. Composed of collected materials, frameless paintings and canvases where the motif asserts itself on a large scale, and castings of objects from excavations, they rest on the ground, conversing with the air and sky.
In the first sequence, entitled Le Silence des formes, a large hollowed-out cube presented in the center of the glass space proposed a link between the time of day and night and the surrounding space. This structure levitated above a shiny black parallelepiped, from which a few coloured surfaces emerged, and projected the lines of its shadows onto the Musée d'Arts building to the rhythm of the sun's course, like a sundial.
Eric Gouret, L'Alignement des grandes distances, phase 1: Le silence des formes, March 1 - May 2024. Musée d'arts de Nantes, photo. photo : C. Clos 
Eric Gouret, L'Alignement des grandes distances, phase 2: Paysage, poussières célestes, May - June 2024. Musée d'arts de Nantes, photo. T. Toupin In spring, for the second phase, the black sand volume flowed and transformed into Landscape, celestial dust revealing the colored sculptures it masked. The ensemble evoked a desert landscape, a lunar setting, a strange relic or a fragment of a model.
Then, in the third sequence, entitled Bad News from the Stars, the summer light of July and August illuminated a teepee-shaped shelter covered with canvas paintings, whose motifs interacted with the constellation shapes already present on the glass walls.
Nebulae of Doubt, the fourth phase, presents a series of forms brought together in a sculpture that evokes both the cartography of a sky and a climbing wall. Each element is the result of a series of gestures. Recovered from a rubble site, like small meteorites, each was chosen and examined before being molded into a strange, precious object of molten metal.
Finally, in the fifth sequence, Étendre les étoiles, the artist continues his dialogue with the cycle of time. The paint, whose palette is similar to that of the other sequences, spreads across the glass surfaces in a geometric, graphic, dynamic and colorful composition. Applied entirely by hand, it reveals the artist's gesture through different layers, sometimes opaque, sometimes more transparent. Small adhesive shapes preserved from previous sequences appear like sequins, stars or flashes of light on this pictorial, cubic and monolithic stained-glass window. At night, the window illuminates, revealing new nuances and subtle reliefs.
Eric Gouret, L'Alignement des grandes distances, phase 5: Etendre les étoiles, November 2024 - January 2025. Musée d'arts de Nantes, photo. photo : C. Clos
Sequence calendar :
- 1- The silence of forms / March1 - May 2024
- 2- Landscape, celestial dust / May - June 2024
- 3- Bad news from the stars / July - September 2024
- 4- Nebulae of Doubt / September - November 2024
- 5- Stretching the stars / November 2024 - January 5, 2025
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In photos
Eric Gouret, The Alignment of Great Distances, phase 1: Silence... Eric Gouret, L'Alignement des grandes distances, phase 2: Paysage,... 
Eric Gouret, L'Alignement des grandes distances, phase 3: Mauvaises... 
Eric Gouret, The Alignment of Great Distances, phase 4: Nebulae of the... 
Eric Gouret, The Alignment of Great Distances, phase 5: Extending...
Programming focused on today's artists
The Parvis is visible from the street and immediately signals the importance of contemporary art to the museum. Each year, it hosts works specifically created for this space, thanks to commissions placed with artists connected with the Nantes region. These include Dominique Blais, Laurent Tixador, Bevis Martin & Charlie Youle, Zhu Hong, Justin Weiler, Julie Maquet and Éric Gouret.
Curator:
Katell Jaffrès, head of contemporary art collections at the Musée d'arts de Nantes.