Artist’s yellow circles enrage residents of historic fortress
CONTROVERSY has erupted over a decision to cover the French medieval walled city of Carcassonne in bright yellow circles in the name of art.
Dubbed “Concentric, eccentric”, the project is the brainchild of Felice Varini, a Swiss contemporary artist famed for creating illusions of flat graphics superimposed on three dimensional spaces via an eye-deceiving technique called anamorphosis.
Varini got local art students to attach thin aluminium strips painted yellow to the fortress after projecting the circles on to its huge stone surface at night. The citadel in southwestern France, restored in the 19th-century, is a popular tourist destination.
The artist was delighted with the work, officially inaugurated on May 4, as was the local town hall, which said it allowed people to see the fortress “in a new light” and took the public on a “veritable aesthetic experience that enhances” their visit, as the yellow lines “spread out into the space like a wave”.
But a group of locals were appalled at what they saw as an affront to the region’s prized heritage. A petition calling for the removal of the “filthy” artwork has now gained more than 1,800 signatures.
“What will tourists think when they come to see the Cité de Carcassonne for the first and last time?
“What image will they have other than of a yellow safety jacket (you know, the one you put in your car!),” it said. “The historic centre of Carcassonne has been all but abandoned, buildings are falling down, graffiti is rife, but when you paint your shutters in your flat a colour that doesn’t ‘correspond’ you get whacked by national heritage inspectors.”
The authors even claimed that the circles resembled “targets” and were inappropriate just weeks after an Islamist shot dead three people and killed a senior gendarme.
One inhabitant told France Info radio: “The people of Carcassonne were not consulted. This is ruining our lives, because we have to look at it all day.”
However, others sprang to the defence of the art work. “Carcassonne fortress awoken by Felice Varini,” wrote one on Twitter, while another called it “playful and impressive”.
The artist insisted that locals would come round to his installation.
“I have often met this type of reaction. At first there is incomprehension and then opinions change little by little,” he said.
The installation will run until September.