Tuesday 1 December 2009

Singing Cymbales in the Jardin des Tuileries

For the duration of the Fiac art fair, sculptural work by renowned international artists was shown in the Tuileries gardens. Under a Parisian sky heavy with clouds, a varied crowd strolled down the alleys of the Jardin des Tuileries on the Sunday afternoon I visited. In the furthest westward basin was installed a piece by Kader Attia entitled Cymbales. Around the pond tourists and Parisians alike sat on the green metal chairs which permanently furniture the gardens. A sense of leisurely quiet and familial innocence pervaded.
As its name entails, the installation comprised cymbals, that on thin bamboo rods, floated above the large expanse of water. The copper coloured cymbals appeared at once foreign and yet imbibed with the natural world. They had the appearance of morphed water lilies. With Cymbales, Attia wanted to indeed represent the natural transcending the cultural. He intended the cymbals to resonate with the sound of the wind, or raindrops. He goes further in stating: “Ce qui m'intéresse ici, c'est d'interroger et de transcender la problématique de la règle et de l'ordre, à travers une œuvre qui crée un lien avec les spectateurs par la voie de l'air et de l'esprit.» (What interests me here is to interrogate and to transcend the question of law and order through a piece that creates a link with its audience via the ways of air and thought.)
Paradoxically, the spirited Sunday audience took to throwing small pebbles across the water, hitting the resonating cymbals every so often depending on the skill of the thrower. A joyous cacophony of clanging sounds echoed around the basin, attracting ever more passers by. As I sat with a friend smoking a cigarette and enjoying the scene, a small park maintenance vehicle came weaving its way up the main park path and started to circle the large octagonal basin. Whenever someone threw a pebble unawares the driver gathered speed and aimed for the culprit. Fathers, kids, old ladies were scowled without discrimination. The scene took on a gleeful (on my part) comic twist when it became clear that most were not conscious of the vehicle, and would therefore continue to throw pebbles. The park warden seemed to be destined to endlessly circle the pond as wave after wave of spirited spectators become participants replaced those sheepish ones that had been told off, and made the most of Kader Attia’s inspiring piece. Unbeknown to the artist perhaps, Attia’s piece indeed brought to light the question of law and order as the brief he set himself states, Cymbales also demonstrated on the one hand the playful nature of Parisians and tourists on a grey Sunday afternoon and on the other, the committed and retarded authoritarianism of the law and order’s acting hand.