Nice: Before the UN Ocean Summit, artists have their say in the city's cultural venues
This sixth arts biennial, with eleven exhibitions, has been postponed by a year to coincide with the UN Ocean Summit, which will be held in June in the port district.
Nice is opening its Biennale of Arts this week with the ambition of presenting artistic perspectives on the sea until the autumn, in addition to the scientific and political discourse expected at the third UN conference on the ocean , which will be held in June in the capital of the Côte d'Azur. The theme of the ocean was chosen for this sixth edition, postponed by a year to coincide with "UNOC 3" and which is intended to be "a call to action to preserve the beauty and richness of the seas and oceans" , explains the mayor of Nice, Christian Estrosi (Horizons) .
Through eleven exhibitions combining historical collections and contemporary creation, "artists play a fundamental role in raising awareness and mobilizing the collective imagination," he continues. The Terra Amata Museum of Prehistory thus recounts the first human settlements on the shores of what is now the Bay of Angels 400,000 years ago. The archaeological museum evokes underwater research.
At the Matisse Museum, an exhibition bringing together 150 major works retraces the artist's fascination with the lights and cultures of the Mediterranean, in Nice where he ended his life but also during his numerous trips to Corsica, Algeria, Spain, Italy, Morocco...
A showcase of the Second Empire, the Villa Masséna traces the evolution of Nice's relationship with a sea whose storms and invaders it feared for centuries, as evidenced by a cannonball from the Turkish army dating from the siege of 1543. Then Nice began to tame the sea by developing the shoreline, until the English came to invent the resort there in the 19th century and then tourists invaded its beaches.
A final room with multiple shades of blue finally evokes the current turning point, with on the one hand two dark but poetic videos by freedivers Julie Gauthier and Guillaume Néry, and on the other a large box of cigarette butts collected on the beach and a fishing net overflowing with plastic waste. "Contemporary artists have taken up these issues that will be debated during UNOC 3: the collapse of biodiversity, overfishing, maritime transport, acidification..." , underlines Hélène Genin, co-curator of the biennial with the former Minister of Culture Jean-Jacques Aillagon.
The photography museum is exhibiting striking images by Laurent Ballesta, researcher and artist, while at 109, the large hall of the former slaughterhouses, Ugo Schiavi offers, with the installation "The Midnight Zone", a sensory dive into the darkness of the abyss, among bioluminescent creatures.
At the Villa Arson, an art school and artist residency, some twenty creators collaborated with the Tara-Océan and TBA21 Thyssen-Bornemisza foundations to document the profound transformation of the oceans and humanity's predatory gaze on this universe. For the first time, the biennial also features a tour of six installations throughout the city.
On the Bellanda Tower, prized for its view of the Promenade des Anglais , Nicolas Floc'h has installed neon tubes representing the convolutions of the Gulf Stream. And on the port's seawall, where the UNOC 3 will take place , Emmanuel Régent has installed a blue luminous line that will light up each time a cetacean passes by the city.
lefigaro
