A new horizon for the Sun King’s lavish home
Versailles finds new ways to wow visitors
VERSAILLES, France — The original plans for Versailles — the magnificent 17th-century palace situated about 12 miles southwest of Paris — included a waterfall in the garden. But merely building the Grand Canal that runs through the grounds proved to be a major feat of engineering. To create a cascade proved impossible.
Now, more than 300 years after Louis XIV (the Sun King) transformed his father's hunting lodge into a glorious symbol of French power, artist Olafur Eliasson — famed for the "New York City Waterfalls" (2008) — is, in his own words, "making the impossible possible."
On June 7, the Chateau de Versailles will unveil a large-scale exhibition of Eliasson's contemporary art (including — mais oui! — a waterfall). Following the likes of Jeff Koons and Anish Kapoor, Eliasson is the latest contemporary artist to take over the estate with art installations — a buzz-generating annual event that invites visitors to see the chateau in a new way.
The Danish-Icelandic Eliasson is a star of the contemporary art world. His creative laboratory, the Berlinbased Studio Olafur Eliasson, employs a 90-person team of artists, art historians, technicians, architects, even cooks. The resulting artwork evokes existential questions and elicits emotional responses.
When Eliasson replicated a setting sun in the Tate Modern's Turbine Hall ("The Weather Project," 2003, London), visitors became active participants in the art installation: lying on the floor, spelling out words with their bodies, creating a human peace sign. "A cultural institution became a forum — a place to meet, to collaborate, even to have conflict," Eliasson explained at a recent news briefing in Paris.
During the U.N. climate conference in Paris late last year, Eliasson installed icebergs from Greenland in front of the Panthéon. Twelve blocks of ice were arranged in the shape of a clock. As the 15,000year-old ice melted into the cobblestones, curious passers-by would stop to press their palms or place an ear against the blue-tinged blocks to listen to the crackling sounds, even stick out their tongues to lick the ice. "Ice Watch" became an interactive rendezvous at all hours of the day and night.
In a similar way, Eliasson aims to emphasize the contemporary importance of the historic chateau that looms large in imaginations around the world. Shortly after the Paris terror attacks in November, the French government used Versailles as the setting to declare an official state of emergency. "There was a contemporary feeling of Versailles being active today," Eliasson recalled.
Today the Chateau de Versailles welcomes 7.5 million annual visitors, making it — according to curator Alfred Pacquement — "a microcosm where people of diverse origins and paths briefly cross paths."
Eliasson's art exhibition explores the notion of the visitor experience in this public space, playing with ideas of perception. "Have we all become king?" Eliasson asked. In the chateau, mirrors and light create optical illusions, raising the question: Who is the subject, who is the object? "I've attempted to make Versailles look at you, rather than you look at Versailles," Eliasson said.
"My work is also very ephemeral," he elaborated. "It's only there when you actively engage. As an artist, I bring half the narrative; you, the visitor, finalize the narrative with your sensibilities."
Perspective has always been an important concept in the French formal garden. Landscape architect André Le Nôtre famously flattened hills, drained marshes and diverted streams to create the vast, geometrically aligned gardens at Versailles — with the Grand Canal intersected by the Petit Canal in the shape of a cross.
It's here in the gardens where three water-themed oeuvres invite visitors to experience H2O in the three forms in which it exists. Created with a crane and a pump, Eliasson's waterfall is erected along the central axis of the Grand Canal, clearly visible from the terraces and inside the chateau. In the Bosquet de l'Etoile (the star grove), visitors can disappear into a ring of mist and experience the tangibility of water in vapor form. Lastly, the Bosquet de la Colonnade (the grove of the colonnade) is covered in a carpet of glacier dust from the same icebergs used in "Ice Watch." Moraine is what's left behind when glaciers recede. "With such a high density of minerals, this beautiful, crystalline powder acts like a fertilizer," explained Eliasson. "It symbolizes the end of the glacier, but also the beginning of new life."
To Eliasson, Versailles is "a labyrinth of secrets.... I was inspired by becoming an explorer in this incredible place — going behind closed doors, into the bedrooms, the corridors.... This exploring: Is it a way to escape or to connect? I wanted to work with an idea that Versailles is actually traveling, traversing the centuries — through the Revolution, through the constitutions — up until today, when it's still an active house. Versailles has journeyed for hundreds of years to meet with me today, just as I've journeyed to be here. Nothing is standing still."
Indeed, Eliasson's imagination knows no boundaries: space, time, even budgets. "New York City Waterfalls" was one of the most expensive public art projects at more than $15 million; the budget for the Versailles exhibition has not been officially disclosed.
With Paris as a base, Versailles makes a fun day trip. It's just 30 minutes by RER train from the Eiffel Tower. I usually linger in the Hall of Mirrors and the royal apartments, soaking up the grandeur, drooling over the sumptuous decor that's been painstakingly reconstructed over the years since the chateau was pillaged during the French Revolution. The Sun King's determination to create a palace large enough to house a 6,000-person court mirrors the manifest destiny he embraced in asserting France's power in the world.
For Americans (who are the No. 1 nationality visiting Versailles), the connection to the Revolutionary War is pivotal. Louis XVI's generous military aid helped the American colonists secure independence from England. The Treaty of Paris was signed at Versailles in 1783. (The important link between Versailles and the United States will be celebrated in a separate exhibition this summer called "Versailles and American Independence.")
Another important American connection: John D. Rockefeller's financial sponsorship saved the chateau from ruin after World War I. "We find it incredibly moving," says the chateau's president, Catherine Pégard, "when American visitors stop and pause in reflection in front of the plaque that's an homage to Rockefeller." Today, American philanthropic contributions continue to play a vital role in restoration projects.
I returned to Versailles on a recent weekend with my family in tow. This time, we didn't even set foot inside the chateau. We set off to explore the gardens. Louis XIV used to hold boating parties on the canal, and on this hot day, visitors also splashed around in boats. There were families and couples and singles, old and young, everyone aware of the others in this storied palace that's become a playground for the people.
We turned down tree-lined paths, paused in groves and took silly selfies in front of serious-faced statues. The domain is so enormous you could spend days wandering its corners. We hiked to the Grand Trianon — we didn't think to rent an electric golf cart! — which was built for Louis XIV as an escape from the strict codes of the court. In Marie Antoinette's hamlet of thatched-roof cottages, we stopped at the farm to check out the rabbits, pigs and prized chickens with funky plumage.