The Baden Baden Satellite Reef is a centerpiece of the exhibition Thalassa Thalassa: Imagery of the Sea at Musee Cantonal des Beaux Arts, Lausanne. This magnificent installation, co-created by Christine Wertheim and Margaret Wertheim in collaboration with more than 4,000 German crafters, was originally produced at Museum Frieder Burda in Baden Baden, Germany.
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From the Curatorial Statement:
“This show challenges us with a singular landscape, the sea, in works of art from the 19th century to the present. What role have artists played in fashioning its imagery? How do they express our desire to preserve its mysteries and beauties?”
“At the point where art history and the history of science and culture meet, the exhibition makes plain how artists have depicted or anticipated the series of upheavals that have redefined our perception of the sea, that immense territory that extends from the shore to the watery depths. At a time when we are increasingly conscious of the role we humans are playing in undermining ecosystems, and maritime borders are causing a number of conflicts, the past sheds light on the present.
The layout of the show is meant to suggest a narrative, from Romanticism to realism, from Symbolism and Surrealism to contemporary art. Visitors will discover that their emotional and aesthetic relationship to the natural world is anchored in a history of images and in a series of formal inventions. On the first and second floors of the museum, three themes are examined in turn, first in the past and then in the present, i.e., shores, depths, and finally abysses.”
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Exhibition Curators:
Catherine Lepdor, chief curator, MCBA, and Danielle Chaperon, professor of French literature, University of Lausanne, with the help of Camille de Alencastro, research assistant, MCBA
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Artists in the Exhibition:
Louis Ducros, Eugen von Ransonnet-Villez, Arnold Böcklin, François Bocion, Ary Renan, Bolesław Biegas, Edward Burne-Jones, Alphonse Osbert, Jean-Francis Auburtin, Alexandre Séon, Albert Marquet, René-Xavier Prinet, Félix Vallotton, Maurice Pillard-Verneuil, Jean Painlevé, Pierre Boucher, Germaine Martin, Man Ray, Max Ernst, Pascal-Désir Maisonneuve, Marcel Broodthaers, Ad van Denderen, Lubaina Himid, Caroline Bachmann and Stefan Banz, François Burland, Miriam Cahn, Sandrine Pelletier, Margaret Wertheim et Christine Wertheim, Yael Bartana
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