Huang Yong Ping Light Mapping

For the Monumenta exhibition in the Nave of the Grand Palais in Paris in 2016, the artist Huang Yong Ping has created a spectacular installation reflecting on the transformations of our world. Installed under the glass roof of the Grand Palais, Empires is made up of containers of different colours assembled and stacked together. The skeleton of a snake sinuously winds its way through the containers and supporting posts.

For the 2017 edition of Art Basel in China, the Empires installation was once again presented in the form of a 1:50 scale model. This reduced version sees itself as a work of art in its own right and offers an overall view of the installation.

It is based on the identical layout of the sculpture and is completed by an architectural framework, which is also materialized on the model. The whole is thus surmounted by a fine structure and augmented with the help of a videomapping on the model designed and produced by on-situ. Recomposing the lighting conditions of a day and playing with the aerial and glazed architecture of the Grand Palais, the projection reinforces the accessibility of the work in its original presentation. Faced with the complexity and monumentality of Empires, the model animated by this play of light delivers a poetic vision of the work. Atmospheric effects are simulated and transferred to the containers. They recreate what took place at the Grand Palais, but also an absent architecture simulated by shadows.