ELYSÉE PALACE, Paris, FRANCE

2021

In this site-specific work, the Murat Staircase at the Élysée Palace becomes the subject of a journey: a movement during which ascent and descent are accompanied by a special energy produced in visual terms by transitions between selected hues. Odyssey seems to unroll as we walk on it. The feeling of fluidity that circulates around and within this space creates a kind of luminous transparency. The wavelengths and variations of light are materialised in the dyed wool. This three-part staircase with a landing half-way up, which leads to the President’s office, becomes an expanding space. The Odyssey carpet offers a series of sensory thresholds.

The first stairway is a transition from night to day: the very dark and intense blue-violet gradually changes into light cyan blue, a phenomenon we perceive as we move. The landing welcomes us with an undulating movement materialised by ultramarine blending into red. Then the two parallel staircases are transformed: one from blue to red, the other from blue to orange, passing through subtle hues that foreshadow the transformation of these contrasting opposite colours in a spatial continuum; it is as if the colour were changing under our feet.

In Odyssey, fluid chromatic modifications slide and circulate. As if turning thought into colour, they act like new forms of energy in immersive polychrome. We feel as if we are walking under the light as its chromatic variations fade in and out.

Original work created for the Mobilier National
Made by Pinton Manufactory
Wool carpet, 93 m2

Photographies by Guillaume Thomas