• Château, Historic Grounds and Stables
    • The Château
      • The historical apartments
      • The private apartments
      • A brief history
      • Chaumont and its owners
    • The Historic Grounds
    • The Stables
      • The horse-drawn vehicles
      • The great stable
  • Centre for Arts and Nature
    • Special commission from the Region
      • Special commission - Archives
    • Archives
      • 2020 Art season
      • Chaumont-Photo-sur-Loire
      • 2019 Art season
      • Chaumont-Photo-sur-Loire 2018-2019
      • 2018 Art season
      • Chaumont-Photo-sur-Loire 2017-2018
      • 2016-2017 Season: Trees in Winter
      • 2016 Art season
      • 2015 Art season
      • 2014 Art season
      • 2013 art season
      • 2012 art season
      • 2011 art season
      • 2010 Art season
      • 2009 art season
      • Art season 2008
  • International Garden Festival
    • Archives
      • 2020 edition
  • Cultural programme and events
  • News
  • Press review
  • Contact
  • Practical information
  • Boutiques
  • Restaurants
    • Le Café des Savoirs et des Saveurs
    • Le Comptoir des Tilleuls
    • L'Estaminet
  • Boutique en ligne
  • News
  • Practical information
  • Contact
  • Regional Domain of Chaumont-sur-Loire
  • Partners
  • Legal notices
  • Espace Presse / Press
    • 2020 - Dossiers de presse / Press Pack
    • 2020 - Visuels / Visuals
    • Archives
      • 2019 - Dossiers de presse / Press Pack
      • 2019 - Visuels / Visuals
      • 2018 - Dossiers de presse / Press Pack
      • 2018 - Visuels / Visuals
      • 2017 - Dossiers de presse / Press Pack
      • 2017 - Visuels / Visuals
      • 2016 - Dossiers de presse / Press Pack
      • 2016 - Visuels / Visuals
      • 2015 - Dossiers de presse / Press Pack
      • 2015 - Visuels / Visuals
      • 2014 - Dossiers de presse / Press Pack
      • 2014 - Visuels / Visuals
      • 2013 - Dossiers de presse / Press Pack
      • 2013 - Visuels / Visuals
      • 2012 - Dossiers de presse / Press Pack
      • 2012 - Visuels / Visuals
      • 2011 - Dossiers de presse / Press Pack
      • 2011 - Visuels / Visuals
      • 2010 - Dossiers de presse / Press Pack
      • 2010 - Visuels / Visuals
      • 2009 - Dossiers de presse / Press Pack
      • 2009 - Visuels / Visuals
      • 2008 - Dossiers de presse / Press Pack
      • 2008 - Visuels / Visuals
  • Groups and Tourism Professionals
    • Tourism professionals
    • Contact the sales department
Ticketing
Château, Historic Grounds and Stables Centre for Arts and Nature International Garden Festival Cultural programme and events
Select language en
  • Français
  • English
  • Deutsch
  • Italiano
  • Español
  • Nederlands
  • 日本語
  • 简体中文
  • Portuguese
  • Русский
Boutique en ligne News Practical information Contact
Special commission from the Region Archives
  • Centre for Arts and Nature
  • Archives
Special commission from the Centre-Loire Valley Region
Château’s kitchens

A. Jannis Kounellis

published at 22/02/2017
Installation de Jannis Kounellis au Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire - © S. Franzese

Jannis Kounellis was the artist entrusted with the first of the Centre-Val de Loire Region’s three-yearly commissions for the Domain of Chaumont-sur-Loire. Between 2008 and 2010, nine of the Château's rooms were transformed into a fascinating labyrinth. 137 bronze bells had been suspended from 137 poplar beams rising from the floor to the ceiling. Concealed beneath black sheets or piled up on top of one other, these silent bells shaped a monumental showpiece with great evocative power.

This project lives on, after the artist's death, through the permanent installation of one of his pieces in the heart of the Château's kitchens. The poplar beams rise up, like multiple vertical lines stretching from the floor to the ceiling, each supporting a bell angled towards the floor, pointing inwards, into the room, towards an approximate centre. It is not the religious significance of the bells which is evoked here, but the way they resemble mouths, voices and sounds. And if you liken Jannis Kounellis's installation to a painting, "The Scream" by the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch comes to mind.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

Jannis KOUNELLIS
GREECE

Born in 1936 in Piraeus (Greece), Jannis Kounellis lived in Rome from the 1950s. He was considered to be a major figure in the contemporary art world and one of the pioneers representing the Arte Povera movement, alongside Mario Merz, Giovanni Anselmo, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Luciano Fabro and Giuseppe Penone. As an artistic approach seeking to be revolutionary, the aim of Arte Povera was to challenge the cultural industry and consumer society and to return to the essence of the creative act, in particular by using so-called "poor" materials in the creation process.

Jannis Kounellis rose to prominence during the 1970s and built up an immense body of work which, bringing together time and space and the construction, tale and archetypes of a mythological project and memory, combined painting and sculpture; architecture and music; theatre, dance and opera. He was among a handful of European artists who, during the 1960s, radically changed art and its perception, and who carried on producing a major body of work.

Jannis Kounellis started out as a painter. Coming from a pictorial (including Caravaggio, Munch, De Chirico and the Cubists) much more than a sculptural tradition, he launched his artistic career during the 1950s by painting letters, arrows and numbers on original media such as wood or newspaper. In 1967, he began producing theatrical performances, installations and sculptures, which intentionally fell within the fragmentary and the ephemeral. He also designed several opera sets.

Jannis Kounellis's installations always drew on their spatial, architectural and historical context and on the tensions which could be found where they were set up.

Often drawing on sacred references and mystery, his works of art brought opposite forces into play: the enduring and the ephemeral; soft and hard; life and death; the industrial and the organic – revealing his interpretation of the relationship between nature and culture. Creating a visual, poetic language which linked the obscure with the perceptible, Jannis Kounellis sought to give form to the dialogue between "structure" and "perceptibility".

He died in Italy on 16 February 2017.

Jannis Kounellis

PUBLIC COLLECTIONS

Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada
Bonnefanten Museum, Maastricht, The Netherlands
Caja de Pensiones Collection, Madrid, Spain
Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art, Torino, Italy
Centre d’Arts Plastiques Contemporains, Bordeaux, France
Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Prato, Italy
Courtauld Institute of Art, London, United Kingdom
Dakis Joannou Collection, Athens, Greece
Diozesanmuseum, Cologne, Germany
Fonds National d’Art Contemporain, Nîmes, France
Fonds Régionaux d’Art Contemporain Nord-Pas de Calais, Dunkerque, France
Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Torino, Italy
Gallerie di Palazzo Leoni Montanari, Vicenza, Italy
Goetz Collection, Munich, Germany
Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain
Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA
Hallen für neue Kunst, Schaffhausen, Switzerland
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, USA
Institute of Contemporary Art, Nagoya, Japan
Kaiser Wilhelm Museum, Krefeld, Germany
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, The Netherlands
Kunsthaus Zurich, Switzerland
Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf, Germany
Kunstmuseum Lichtenstein, Vaduz, Liechtenstein
Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark
Migros Museum für Gegenwarstkunst, Zurich, Switzerland
Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France
Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Donna Regina, Napoli, Italy
Museo di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, Italy
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain
Museum Abeteiberg, Mönchengladbach, Germany
Museum Brandhorst, Munich, Germany
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, USA
Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia
Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA
Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart, Australia
Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst, Antwerp, Belgium
National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, Greece
Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels, Belgium
Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich, Germany
Staatsgalerie Moderner Kunst, Munich, Germany
Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Ghent, Belgium
Tate Gallery, London, United Kingdom
Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Netherlands
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, USA

View on the map
Installation de Jannis Kounellis au Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire - © Éric Sander
Installation de Jannis Kounellis au Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire - © Éric Sander
Installation de Jannis Kounellis au Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire - © Éric Sander
Espace Presse / Press
Groups and Tourism Professionals
News Press review Contact Practical information Boutiques Restaurants Ticketing

Newsletter

Regional Domain of Chaumont-sur-Loire Partners Legal notices

The Domain of Chaumont-sur-Loire

Aquired by the Centre-Val de Loire Region in 2007, The Domain of Chaumont-sur-Loire has become an unmissable site within the spheres of art and gardens. The triple identity of the Domaine : Heritage, art and gardens make for a unique visit within the circuit of the Loire Valley castles

Read more
Regional Domain of Chaumont-sur-Loire
41150 Chaumont-sur-Loire
Tel :+33 (0) 2 54 20 99 22
Fax :+33 (0) 2 54 20 99 24
Logo région centre Logo Val de Loire - Unesco Logo DRAC Logo arbre remarquable Logo jardin remarquable Logo Qualité tourisme