Less than a thousand days before the opening of the first stations, the Société du Grand Paris, on February 24, revealed eleven new tandem works by “artists and architects” for the stations of the Grand Paris Express. The announcement was made at the Ministry of Culture on Thursday, February 24, 2022, in the presence of Roslyn Bachelot-Narquin surrounded by architects and artists from the Grand Hotel Paris Express.
“We thus affirm our ambition to make the Grand Paris the expression of a major art collection spread throughout the entire metropolitan region and accessible to all,” Jean-François Montiel, Chairman of the Société du Grand Paris said on Thursday, February 24. , under the gilded cladding of the Salon des Maréchaux at the Ministry of Culture, rue de Valois in Paris. “At the stations, the works of art will be unprecedented from a creative point of view, but also for the audience: they all belong to a new chapter in the history of Paris. José Manuel Gonçalves, artistic director of the Grand Paris Express, added, in the presence of many of them, 11 new artistic and architectural tandems, Their works will decorate the stations of the Grand Paris Express, enhancing the uniqueness of their identity.
Jean-François Montiel, Chairman of the Société du Grand Paris. © Jgp
Olivier Klein, Chairman of the SGP Supervisory Board. © Jgp
Remy Babnett (BETC), President of the SGP Scholarship Fund. © Jgp
Culture Minister Roslyn Bachelot Narquin. © Jgp
Pierre Emmanuel Becherand, Managing Director of the Grand Paris Express Endowment Fund. © Jgp
This original collaboration, based on the principle of tandems of artists and architects, will bring an aesthetic, sensual and poetic dimension to the sixty-eight new stations of the network, by creating works truly integrated into the architecture of the stations, defines the Société du Grand Paris. This main public technical committee is part of the aesthetic, urban and social ambition of the stations of the future.
Unveiled 11 new works by an artist and an architect
Sifran – Livre Daniel Buren and Jean Marie Dothelol
© SGP – Duthilleul Agency – Daniel Buren
Daniel Buren captures the windows of Severan-Livre Station to color the roof designed by architect Jean-Marie Duthilol. Playing with geometric shapes, space and light, the artist re-emphasizes his playful approach. Lines and colors spread over the station, coming to life to the rhythm of the play of shadows on display there and shifting like a circus tent. The material dialogue in Transparency creates a changing atmosphere and plays on the spatial perceptions of travelers, SGP points out.
Antonipol Julie C Fortier and Eric Pouzinat
© SGP – Julie C. Fortier – Workshops 2/3/4 /
© SGP – Workshops 2/3/4 /
Julie C. Fortier publishes an olfactory kinetic work that accompanies travelers from the station’s front yard to the platforms. Kinetic shutter rejects a dynamic pattern of spirals on the brick facade. This relief develops throughout the day depending on the brightness. It echoes the “olfactory rendezvous”, which was created from the memories of the inhabitants of the territory. Developed and installed by the artist, these fragrances spread to different areas of the station and move with the air currents at six key times during the day.
Le Bourget Mona Hatoum and Jacques Bajo Airport
© SGP – Atelier November
© Mona Hatoum’s proposal for Gare Le Bourget Airport – SGP – Mona Hatoum
Located at the intersection between the Aviation Center of Le Bourget, the Parc des Expositions and the Air and Space Museum, the Bourget Aéroport station dialogues with a strong historical place. Jacques Bagot believes that the appearance of the station, cubed with glass walls, is a symbolic “leverage” of this changing region. Inside, artist Mona Hatoum draws inspiration from these spaces for a light installation that invites us elsewhere: “The proposed work is a luminous, open and airy globe that uses LED lights to mark the contours of a world map on the surface of an invisible globe. .The lightness and transparency of the suspended work, drawn In pure white light, it gives it an ethereal feel that stimulates a kind of fantasy, the fantasy of travel … ”, the artist points out.
Line 18 Fateh Zemouri and Jean-Francois Schmidt Operations Center
© SGP – Fatiha Al-Zamouri – White Gallery
© SGP – JFS Architects
To create her work inside the Line 18 Operations Center, artist Fatiha El-Zemmoury focused on working heavy objects in a state of weightlessness. To combine nature and technology in her project, she chose a combination of two materials: stone and glass. Metal, installed outdoors, is part of the building’s immediate environment while integrated with the facade materials. The glass faces it to create the effect of an industrial and natural landscape. The artist plays on perceptions and concepts of gravity, lightness and weightlessness.
Banux, Tatiana Trofeh and Mark Baranyi
© SGP – Marc Barani Architects
© SGP – Tatiana Trovez – Gallery Blanche
Mark Brany. © Jgp
Inspired by the ‘troglodyte’ structure, the architecture of the Bagneux Station evokes drilling into the massif through the texture of a concrete wall showing traces of rock extraction. In the work of Tatiana Truffaut we find the idea of a well, a cave, where the daylight gradually fades as we reach the docks. The artist makes a huge metal stucco landscape that would have been carved during the construction of the station. Bronze and stucco sculptures, displays and reliefs, intertwined with marble to create a play of material. On the -2 walls, four marble slabs, like bas-reliefs, stand. The artist’s drawings are part of the veins of the rock and inlays in bronze.
Clichy – Montfermeil JR & Benedetta Tagliabue
© SGP – JR – Agency Miralles Tagliabue EMBT
© Chronicles of Clichy-Montfermeil, France, 2017 – JR
On the exteriors of ClichyMontfermeil Station, artist JR publishes a huge mural of 800 images of the residents of ClichyMontfermeil taken in 2016. The mural, printed on ceramic tiles, is a modification of the one on display at the Palais de Tokyo in 2017, then in the heart of Busquets in Clichy So Bois. It is reworked here to respond harmoniously to the distinctive wave of the station’s canopy designed by architect Benedetta Tagliabue. A true human mosaic, the scene is “a portrait of those striving to put hair back in cement,” according to JR.
Champigny Michelangelo Pistoletto & Thomas Richez . Center
© SGP – Michelangelo Pistoletto – Blackout
© SGP – Richez Associates
Thomas Riches. © Jgp
For the Champigny Center Station, Michelangelo proposes a light installation that accompanies the journey of travelers from the entrance to the platforms. With colorful neon letters, the phrase Loving Variations is available in 16 languages, most commonly used in Champigny. In the center of the station, the series of words forms the third heaven inspired by the symbol of infinity, a recurring theme in the work of Michelangelo Pistoletto, heralding a new world that takes us to the age of responsibility, benefiting from the age of knowledge.
Exhibition Center Félicie d’Estienne d’Orves and Dietmar Feichtinger
© SGP – Félicie d’Estienne d’Orves – Galerie Blanche
© Dietmar Feichtinger Architects – SGP
Felicie d’Estienne d’Orves & Dietmar Feichtinger © Jgp
“At the speed of light, we are 10 minutes from Venus, 4 years from exoplanet Proxima B or even 2.3 billion years from the Abell 2218 galaxy.” Félicie d’Estienne d’Orves’ work “Time to Travel” was inspired by this experience: a set of rays of light embedded in the mezzanine ceiling illuminate the earth’s names of celestial bodies as well as the time of travel to reach them. them from the Parc des Expositions station. Each time the subway arrives, the mezzanine ceiling comes alive after the movement of the train and the letters light up at regular intervals. Then the light assembly pulls out of the subway in seconds. During their journey to reach the platform, the user thus crosses a remarkable universe of hundreds of celestial bodies vibrating to the rhythm of the Grand Paris Express.
Orly Wels and Francois Thamesiere Airport
© SGP – Vhils & François Tamisier
This work by Portuguese street artist Vhils explores the process of mutual formation that exists between the city and its inhabitants, through which each contributes to shaping the identity and character of the other. It can also be considered as an urban window into the city. It captures the Greater Paris and its monuments, while painting the faces that appear and merge into the fabric of the capital, highlighting its plurality of inhabitants and lands. For this work, which is positioned in the center of the station, the artist uses azulejo, traditional Portuguese ceramic tiles, whose shadows make the fresco vibrate, giving it a kinetic effect that accompanies the journey of travelers.
Villejuif, Louis Aragon, Constance Jesse and Philip Gazou
© SGP – Constance Geisette – Blackout
© SGP – Architect Philippe Gazzo
Constance Jesset © Jgp
In this glass station open to the four winds, the work of Constance Jesse proposes to make the movements of the air visible and in concert with the movements of the users. A chain is deployed on both sides of the axes of rotation. He accompanies the passenger on his journey and invites him to lose himself in a moment of contemplation, amplified by the reflections of a mirror ceiling. The chain is set with air bodies, and the organic blades gently move with the flow of air, forming a living work shaped by movement.
Kremlin-Bicêtre Hospital Eva Jospin & Jean-Paul Viguier
© SGP – Eva Jospin – Uti Architectes
© SGP – Figwer
Eva Jospin
For the Kremlin-Bicêtre Hôpital station, Eva Jospin imagined a work in two parts outside and inside the station. On the exterior, the artist makes something like a side of concrete rock, made up of superimposed layers in front of which are multiplied by bronze chrome, drawn from models of cardboard, the artist’s favorite material. Inspired by the movie Fellini Roma, where ancient marvels appear buried during the construction of the metro, here Eva Jospin evokes the fossilization and archaeological discoveries of the construction sites of the Grand Paris Express.
