IMPRESSION SOLEIL LEVANT

  • Video installation

Eugenio Ampudia puts the spectator on the seashore, allowing them to see nearby rocks, where there is a collection of paintings visible only from behind. These are thrown into the sea and washed up on the shore, the artworks discovered as the waves are breaking. These paintings are: Manet’s Breakfast on the Grass, Gauguin’s Area Area, Courbet’s The Origin of the World, Renoir’s Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette, Cézanne’s Oranges and Apples, Van Gogh’s Bedroom in Arles and Manet’s Olympia. All of them belong to the collection of the Musée d’Orsay in Paris and all are part of the beginning of the historical vanguards. When the video ends after 5 minutes and 15 seconds, some paintings remain on the rocks, offering the spectator the possibility of imagining that they will follow all the key paintings of the 20th century in their fall. A shipwreck, or a spectacular way of displaying a collection?

Spectators leave their footprints in sand in front of the screen – all that remains when the display is over.