Exhibition
Contemporary art
2 Apr 2014 – 2 Jan 2015
Claude Lévêque - Sous le plus grand chapiteau du monde
About
Claude Lévêque's work intervenes in the spaces it encounters, harnessing the energy of his densely-woven, intense 'plastic' vocabulary to deliver a powerful visual and sensory shock. As guest artist in residence at the Louvre, Lévêque's engagement begins with an incandescent light installation at Ieoh Ming Pei's celebrated Pyramid.
Neon – a signature medium of choice for Lévêque – strikes a great bolt of light, slicing an immense volume of air to scatter reflections day and night on the architecture all around.
After Tony Cragg, Wim Delvoye and Loris Gréaud, Claude Lévêque's creation in situ offers his own, highly personal reading of the museum's iconic entrance, to be extended further into the underground moat and keep of the medieval Louvre in 2015.
'Light and sound enact a complete metamorphosis,' says Claude Lévêque. 'They are the twin primordial elements in any sensation. After that, come texture, visual images, atmosphere, objects and the rest.'
Claude Lévêque's new creation is the first chapter in an intervention extending in autumn 2015 to the underground moat of the medieval Louvre.