Alley sculptures

Aluminium (2024).

This contemporary reworking of Bourdelle’s famous Héraklès archer in the Musée Ingres Bourdelle is much more than a simple enlargement. The artist’s intervention can be seen here in the choice to retain only the upper part, giving the work a modern reinterpretation.

Combining attention to detail with resolutely contemporary techniques, Corinne Chauvet scans and digitizes the plaster original to restore the finest details, which she then covers with marble powder. Since last summer, the Albigensian artist has been working on a new statue, this time in aluminum. The artist, who worked on the creation of the first Herakles in 2019, then on its restoration on two occasions, has now set about creating a second work from the mold, which had been preserved. This work was carried out in close collaboration with the town’s cultural services.

Working alongside the Madrid-based Taller de Arte José Luis Ponce foundry – one of the few to know how to mold aluminum – Corinne Chauvet opted for the lost-wax technique, in order to work in fine on an aluminum reproduction. In addition to its white, luminous effect, the metal gives the work fluidity and a certain resistance. The new statue features “points justes” – reference points for reproducing and/or resizing a sculpture – in homage to the sculptor’s pantograph, a 19th-century technique from Antoine Bourdelle’s time.

Seemingly rising from the earth, Herakles and his monumental arch point us in the direction of the Musée Ingres Bourdelle, as an invitation to rediscover the art of the famous Montalban sculptor.

Corten steel (2020).

Set into the ground, these impressive 4.50-metre-high arrows in corten steel look as if they’ve been unhooked by Bourdelle’s illustrious archer Herakles . Unlike Bourdelle, who depicts an archer without arrows (or just after the shot), Émilie Prouchet Dalla-Costa has chosen to depict only these arrows, which were only hinted at by the Montalban master.

The cracks in the ground recall the violence of the mythological hero’s effort to defeat the monstrous birds of Lake Stymphale. The cut-outs in the steel and the gold leaf on the tail of the arrows refer to the bronze feathers on the birds’ wings. The epilogue to Hercules’ sixth ordeal, these eight monumental arrows project a touch of the ancient into the contemporary, forming a new landmark in the new urban space of the redeveloped alleys.

Bronze, volcanic lava base (2019).

This representation of Camille Claudel echoes Bourdelle’s meeting with the young sculptress in Rodin’s studio in 1893. By highlighting this symbolic figure of the female artist in the 19th century, Patrick Berthaud continues the rediscovery of Camille Claudel’s work and life that began in the 1970s.

Here, dressed in a large sculptor’s gown, she appears to be rearing up as if carried away by a wave, recalling one of her most famous works, La vague ou les Baigneuses, dated 1897-1903. This 2.60-metre-high figure, all imbalance (fall or rise?), illustrates the strength, fragility and tragic destiny of this sculptress, now celebrated in the city of Olympe de Gouges.

Bourdelle had been marked by his encounter with Camille Claudel, dedicating a poem to her at the end of his life in 1926.

Bronze (2019).

This work is the bronze print of an earlier plaster produced in the 90s under the name La plaine, originally conceived as a ‘hymn to the beauty of woman and her strength’. In naming the bronze Cleopatra, Flavio de Faveri paid tribute to Bourdelle’s muse and second wife, Cleopatra Sevastos.

The installation of this sculpture on the esplanade des Fontaines marks the consecration of an artist who lived and worked in sculpture in Montauban for over 50 years, and whose many works can be seen in public spaces. Cleopatra has aesthetic and structural similarities with the figure on the Algerian War Memorial on Cours Foucault: the hairstyle, the light draped outfit revealing the breasts in transparency, the bare arms, and the strong structure of the torso.

Bourdelle’s influence can be seen in the treatment of the face and muscles. Like Bourdelle, de Faveri had been introduced to sculpture in his father’s carpentry workshop.