Dijon has a new work in its streets. The Time Counter, by the German artist Gloria Friedmann, settled in Place Grangier, opposite the post office. The work was inaugurated in the presence of the mayor PS of Dijon François Rebsamen Monday June 8.
It consists of a sphere that represents the Earth. Twelve clocks are located there. We can read on each of them the local time of a city from one of the five continents. A man is seated at the top with a clock in his hands, showing the Dijon time.
“It’s a bit of an allegory of passing time, says Gloria Friedmann, who has lived in Burgundy for a long time, in Aignay-le-Duc (Côte-d’Or). What mattered to me in a certain way was not the passing of time, it was we who passed in time. Let’s take advantage of every moment, because you never know what will happen next (laughs) “
I work a lot on the relationship of man with nature. And time is part of it somewhere, that’s what ultimately settles it.
– Gloria Friedmann
The city has wanted to develop Place Grangier for a long time. “We wanted to give it another life. Gloria’s proposal seemed very suitable for this place, specifies Christine Martin, deputy mayor in charge of culture. Put this Time counter next to a Burgundy oak… The history of time seemed beautiful to tell in this way there between this oak and this sculpture, because it is a tree a priori of long life. “
The artist, named knight of the Legion of Honor in 2018, had already signed a work installed a few tens of meters away. The Semper Virens, the tree-face located at the corner of rue de la Liberté and place François Rude since 2013 and the pedestrianization of the shopping artery.
Art in public space is by definition aimed at a large audience. “It has to be something fairly immediate, that we understand, that we don’t have to think too much”, says Gloria Friedmann.“The Semper Virens rue de la Liberté is a work that the people of Dijon have very quickly taken over. I hope they will take it over as quickly, indicates the culture assistant. It seems to me that it is easy to access. “
This may be what was missing in the Pocket garden, the work of Didier Marcel installed in 2013 rue de la Liberté opposite the Galeries Lafayette and nicknamed by some “the trunk that turns”.
The creation made from a molding made on a tree in the Colombière park was mocked, degraded several times. There are still charitable souls to defend the “trunk” against critics. Romain Moretto, art historian, organized a “guided tour” of this work in 2014 to change the eyes of the Dijonese.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fezbf_-Qzq8
All the beauty, strength and poetry of Didier Marcel’s work –
In 2017, the Pocket garden has been disassembled. “The children were playing with the work, and it is good that they are taking it over. But by turning it in the opposite direction to its rotation, it broke the engine”, recalls Christine Martin. The “trunk” is under repair before being reinstalled elsewhere. Where ? “We have some ideas but it is not yet definitively fixed”, blows the chosen one. In the meantime, a real tree and a few benches took its place on rue de la Liberté at the end of May 2020.
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