The Centre des monuments nationaux [National Monuments Centre], encourages contemporary viewpoints on national monuments. It often invites artists to exhibit or to perform their work in or around the monuments it has in its care.
In 1997, for instance, Solveigh Kaehler, a German photographer who lives both in Greece and in Brittany, was given the chance to pursue her work on the archaeological and/or mythological sites at Carnac.
Her exhibition, "Carnac, words of stone", which was held at the Kermario Visitors Centre, and the ensuing catalogue published by Revoe were very successful. Likewise, in the Autumn of 1999, Jean-Jacques Dournon, a painter who often works in Carnac and who was awarded the Rome Prize in 1980, exhibited about thirty of his paintings at the Kermario Centre.
A photography of Kermario by S. Kaehler.
Jean-Yves Menez, who is both poet and sculptor, studied the themes of ritual art and monumental sculpture. In ‘The Song of the Stone’, he created a thematic journey round the world, using nine megaliths to illustrate the concepts of interruption and opening.
He has sculpted a boat out of a 35 tonne granite block. The boat was launched during the Brest 2000 festival and recalls the legend of the Missionary Saints who were said to have sailed to Armorica aboard stone troughs.
J.-Y. Menez's monotic : computer program lines engraved in the stone show how fleeting coded procedures are.
Jules Paressant has always been fascinated by primitive arts. He visited Carnac for the first time back in 1930 !
Megaliths have always been a great source of inspiration for a man who was initially a surgeon and whose talent as an artist was revealed to the public in 1985 through a memorable exhibition at the Pont-Aven museum.
Originally a painter, he turned to sculpting wood, stone, bronze and to engraving and mosaics in 1970.
His work can be viewed at ‘l’Aulnaie’, at Cordemais, near Nantes (Phone: (33) 2 40 57 07 96).
Wooden stele, sculpture by J. Paressant, engraved and burnt on a Celtic mosaic background.
Ebba von Fersen Balzan, a German-Maltese artist who has lived in Malta for 15 years, finds inspiration in Maltese temples that fascinate her with their beauty and mystery. However, she did not forget that her meeting with the Neolithic age took place in Brittany, where she stayed when she was a student.
Maltese temples and Neolithic vestiges of Brittany interact in his work presented during collective or personal exhibitions organized in Malta, Germany, Italy, France and the United States.
Ebba von Fersen-Balzan : Allée couverte Liscuit 1, Laniscat.