Blur The Edges, Love One Another" exhibition by Sean Scully

The Centre des monuments nationaux presents the exhibition Blur The Edges, Love One Another by Sean Scully at Château d'Oiron from 23 May to 6 October 2024.

Sean Scully is one of the most important artists of his generation whose work has changed the paradigm of abstraction by fusing the minimalism of American abstraction with the metaphor and spirituality of the European tradition.

He constructs his paintings and sculptures from simple forms, intuitively stacked and nested until they occupy all the space given to them and seem to harbour something sacred within.

He is interested in the intrinsic qualities of materials, whether the colours and sensuality of paint, the delicate rusted surfaces of Corten steel or the contrast between the smooth and rough surfaces of stone.

Scully's works are both physical and sensitive, at the crossroads of the material and emotional worlds.

The Centre des Monuments Nationaux, wishing to extend the visitor's experience of the château's grounds, invited Sean Scully to create a monumental sculpture in the spirit of the fabriques that appeared in English gardens in the 18th century, inviting visitors to discover a variety of viewpoints and landscapes.

The artist has chosen to create a Stone Tower, a formidable 'fortress' in local stone, whose mass and vertical angles will echo the scale and architecture of the château. This first permanent sculpture by Sean Scully in a French public institution is currently under construction and will be unveiled in autumn 2024.

Because his sculptures and paintings are intimately linked, the artist has selected a group of eight paintings for Oiron to present the permanent sculpture in the wider context of his work: abstract paintings on aluminium composed of fluid horizontal and vertical blocks of colour and porous spaces between them.

The title of the exhibition Blur The Edges, Love One Another refers to these spaces between the blocks of paint - or stone - and thus to the idea of the importance of negotiating and blurring the boundaries between people, nations, towards a place of love and tolerance.

Venice Stack (2020), a sculpture of stacked blocks of Murano glass, a three-dimensional stained glass window imbued with a painterly sensibility, will greet visitors in the entrance hall of the castle, linking the outside and the inside.

Born in Dublin in 1945, Scully grew up in South London and moved to New York in 1975. He now lives and works in New York, London, Aix-en-Provence and Bavaria.

The exhibition is dedicated to the memory of Jill Silverman van Coenegrachts.