Mont Analogue

Like a lighthouse signalling the Bourse de Commerce from the top of the Medici column, Mont Analogue throbs with lights of different hues and sends its utopian message out into the Paris sky. This work is a fantastic metaphysical adventure, inspired by the mythical and unfinished novel by René Daumal (1908–1944), a story published posthumously in 1951, recounting the discovery and collective ascent of a mountain linking the sky and the earth. A never-ending quest, an impossible adventure, a metaphor for art and its utopia.

The artist designed a new version of this site-specific installation for the Medici column that flanks the Bourse de Commerce for the inaugural exhibition entitled "Ouverture". A reconfiguration, a reminiscence, a new avatar of a work created in 2001 and central to Parreno's work, Mont Analogue sits atop the only vestige of Catherine de Medici's former palace. This Renaissance column, as much a symbol of royal power as an esoteric landmark, becomes a transmitter from which the artist broadcasts a new message to the city. It is in the form of a luminous, intermittent, and mysterious code that Philippe Parreno invites us to discover the invisible, possible, and intangible worlds of art.