Barbara Chase-RiboudQuand Un Nœud est Dénoué, Un Dieu est Libéré

Quand Un Noeud Est Dénoué, Un Dieu Est Libéré, a solo exhibition featuring works by Barbara Chase-Riboud marks the first time eight Parisian museums join forces to honor and highlight the relation to heritage of an artist during their lifetime.

At the musée du Louvre, under the Pyramid, the 1973 stele Gold Column evokes the presence of a royal figure. In the collections of Greek, Etruscan and Roman antiquities, as well as Egyptian antiquities, it is the figure of Cleopatra, central to the artist’s work since her discovery of Egypt in 1958, that is invoked: Greek and Egyptian princess, scholar and politician, present in two departments of the Louvre linked by the artist. During her journey, Barbara Chase-Riboud traveled along the Nile and visited the monuments of Alexandria, Luxor, and Cairo. She returned transformed. The Cleopatra series includes five monumental sculptures created over a period of thirty years (1973-2003), two of which are on display at the Louvre. These sculptures, resembling armors, are composed of hundreds of bronze tesserae connected by copper wires. This installation is illustrated by verses from Portrait of a Nude Woman as Cleopatra, published in 1987.

 

Exhibition Curators

Erin Jenoa Gilbert and Donatien Grau, musée du Louvre