Beneath the dome of the Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection, within Tadao Ando's concrete cylinder, Fujiko Nakaya's Fog Sculpture appears as a landscape of mist drifting beyond the Rotunda's boundaries – thickening and dispersing in response to shifting air currents and visitors' movements.
The Rotunda of the Bourse de Commerce hosts an installation by the Japanese artist Fujiko Nakaya. Conceived specifically for this setting, the work draws on the artist's concept of Fog Sculptures, a medium she has developed for more than fifty years in both public spaces and museum environments. Fujiko Nakaya is the daughter of physicist Ukichirō Nakaya, a pioneer in the creation of artificial snow. While initially studying painting in Japan, Europe and the United States, Nakaya set out to explore the changing nature of life itself. By introducing a natural phenomenon inside a human construction, Nakaya's Fog Sculpture brings Ando's fundamental ambitions into sharper focus. This deep connection to place is reflected in the title of the work itself, Cloud #07156. The number refers to a meteorological station located near the Bourse de Commerce, making this artificial cloud a curious counterpart to those drifting across the Parisian sky above. Fujiko Nakaya's Fog Sculptures ultimately fulfil the fascination that has animated her practice from the outset: to give form to the impermanence and constant transformation of the world and its inhabitants. By turning the museum into a shifting landscape, she transforms its very function, as it enters into a dynamic relationship with the universe beyond its walls rather than serving solely as a place of preservation.
A contemporary art magazine published by Analogues, Semaine focuses on the development of art and exhibitions in time and proposes an approach to art in the making, revealing the extent and diversity of the artistic territory in France today.
Fujiko Nakaya (born 1933 in Sapporo, Hokkaido) pioneered video art in Japan and was the first to explore new technologies in landscape art. Since the 1970s, she has been creating “Fog Sculptures,” or misty environments offering visitors a surprising visual, bodily, and mental experience.
