Open Space #8 Bianca Bondi

Open Space is a programme dedicated to the most contemporary artistic expressions. National and international artists are invited to create a specific project for the Fondation. Open Space takes place regularly in different settings around Frank Gehry’s building.

Bianca Bondi’s artistic practices combines methods with material experimentation. She selects these materials according to their intrinsic properties or their potential for transformation, seeking possible ways to combine them to create strange new surfaces. Inspired by the occult sciences, her work process may be compared to a ritual practice or an instinctive alchemy. By fostering potential mutations among the elements, she brings slow conceptual performances to centre stage on both macroscopic and microscopic levels. The artist draws parallels between her organic encounters and current-day situations or the history of the venue, carrying an ecological message while endeavouring to reveal the intangible.

For Open Space #8, her first personal exhibition at a museum in France, Bianca Bondi turns Galerie 8 into a synthetic landscape made up of natural elements. At the centre of the installation lies a well, like a source of energy. Its alveoli contain coloured saline solutions which release a redolent mineral fragrance. Here and there are islands of vegetation and a branch covered with creepers. A purplish haze spreads along the walls. The flowers are stabilised, the salt is crystallised, sound stretches out... Time appears to stand still. Inspired by Mexican cenotes and other sacred springs, this indoor garden invites the spectator to a multi-sensory experience “unreal based in reality,” in the words of the artist herself.

Ludovic Delalande and Claire Staebler