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Pierrick Sorin
© Pierrick Sorin
Heritage and contemporary art
The new Nantes History Museum in the Ducal residence is the result of an ambition to create a 21st century museum within a 15th century historic monument.
The museum builds a portrait of the history of Nantes through documents, paintings, prints, film... a wide variety of representations of the city by artists at different periods. As a special conclusion to the exhibition, which covers 32 rooms and has an important final sequence on the modern city and its estuary, a contemporary artist is invited to provide his own vision of Nantes, inspired by different areas of the display. To be renewed every two years, this commission will also enrich the museum's collection of artistic images. Pierrick Sorin, a Nantes video artist with an established international reputation, has been chosen to open the series.
The museum builds a portrait of the history of Nantes through documents, paintings, prints, film... a wide variety of representations of the city by artists at different periods. As a special conclusion to the exhibition, which covers 32 rooms and has an important final sequence on the modern city and its estuary, a contemporary artist is invited to provide his own vision of Nantes, inspired by different areas of the display. To be renewed every two years, this commission will also enrich the museum's collection of artistic images. Pierrick Sorin, a Nantes video artist with an established international reputation, has been chosen to open the series.
© Pierrick Sorin
"City Portrait" by Pierrick Sorin
The project specification required the use of a semi-circular screen with three HD video projectors for a 180° video projection. An interactive light guide facility was also provided.
Pierrick Sorin has created a very personal "city portrait" in the form of a high definition film projected onto an ultra-wide screen. Ships glide past, each one evoking specific events in the city's history, from the slave trade to the invention of the Petit LU biscuit. The work presents a series of humorous playlets on Nantes history or its particularities. Pierrick Sorin takes his love of self-filming to new heights, by playing nearly all the roles himself: almost eighty characters who appear during this river parade.
He decided against an interactive element, replacing it with a "théâtre optique", an ingenious small-scale film show.
Pierrick Sorin has created a very personal "city portrait" in the form of a high definition film projected onto an ultra-wide screen. Ships glide past, each one evoking specific events in the city's history, from the slave trade to the invention of the Petit LU biscuit. The work presents a series of humorous playlets on Nantes history or its particularities. Pierrick Sorin takes his love of self-filming to new heights, by playing nearly all the roles himself: almost eighty characters who appear during this river parade.
He decided against an interactive element, replacing it with a "théâtre optique", an ingenious small-scale film show.
Pierrick Sorin makes short films and visual devices in which he uses a slapstick style to poke fun at human existence and artistic creativity. He appears in much of his own work and is often the only actor in the stories he creates. But the artist is also a worthy successor to Georges Méliès: he specialises in creating small-scale "théâtres optiques", mixtures of ingenious devices and new technologies which enable him to appear in space as if by magic, as a hologram and in amongst real-life objects.