It’s all about the Experience
Each year, Domaine Vranken-Pommery, a 50-hectare estate in Reims, France’s Champagne region, mounts a sprawling contemporary art exhibition across multiple locations. VAULT visited as Experience #17: Forever came to a close.
Image credit: Installation view, Jacqueline Dauriac, A heart for… in Experience #17: Forever, Cellars, The Domaine Vranken-Pommery, 2023-4
Widowed in 1858 with two children, Madame Pommery took over her husband’s fledgling Champagne house at the time barely out of its infancy. Cleverly, she sought to appeal to the English consumer with a table wine that would become known as Brut – a dryer champagne than was traditional among the French, who drank champagne as a dessert wine. So, she bought herself 60 medieval-era Gallo-Roman crayères (chalk pits), in which the conditions for the aging of this variety of champagne are perfect (constant temperature at 10 degrees and humidity at 98% throughout the year.) Construction began in 1968 to build 18 kilometres of cellars connecting the chalk pits, each named after a metropolis of the universe upon Pommery’s conquest of their market (metaphorically speaking.) An early indicator of the commitment to art that remains at the heart of the house is that each chalk pit sports a grand bas-relief commissioned by M. Pommery.
Image credit: Installation view, Anthony James, 60’’ Great Stellated Dodecahedron (Solar Black)
in Experience #17: Forever, Cellars, The Domaine Vranken-Pommery, 2023-4
The centrepiece of the annual Experience exhibition is staged down those 116 steps, or 30 metres, into the heart of the earth—this past year, the Forever exhibition. The dramatic subterranean setting always invites an equally grand curation of site-specific works along a one-kilometre route. Under the direction of curator Fabrice Bousteau, Forever reactivated some of the artists who have worked there recently alongside new additions in a shared pursuit of a definition of eternity.
Some works dotted along the galactic constellation of cellars sought to light up the reverent darkness of their unique setting. You encountered London-based collaborators Hsiao-Chi Tsai and Kimiya Yoshikawa’s Pop Blooms and Star series on your way downstairs; you descended beneath the neoprene, felt, perspex, wood and LED lighting installation, its forms and colours derived from nature. Further in, Marinella Senatore’s Bodies in Alliance and Dance First Think Later were subliminal neon messages, pulsating from where they were mounted out into the space. Another glowing work was Anthony James’ 60’’ Great Stellated Dodecahedron (Solar Black). In his work, mirrors and light use the mathematical to evoke the mythical, opening portals into infinity.
Image credit: Installation view, Anne-Flore Cabanis, Directions & aplomb, orienting oneself in the reverie… and Jacqueline Dauriac, A heart for… in Experience #17: Forever, Cellars, The Domaine Vranken-Pommery, 2023-4
Then there were those works, including Anne-Flore Cabanis’ Directions & aplomb, orienting oneself in the reverie… that played on the sheer size of the crayères. In aplomb, taut straps were stretched from the top of the crayère to the bottom, oriented to the cardinal directions – to which this spot at the end of the tunnels corresponds. Resembling rays of light or the streaking tails of falling stars, the straps appear from below as if they could go on forever towards a distant point of convergence. To the north beyond it, you could see and navigate to Jacqueline Dauriac’s A heart for… similarly in the centre of its own crayère. A sensory installation, the giant love heart beat with the memory of those beating hearts of humans who have inhabited these spaces since Roman times.
Image credit: Installation view, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Terzo Paradiso in Experience #17: Forever, Cellars, The Domaine Vranken-Pommery, 2023-4
A highlight was Michelangelo Pistoletto’s Terzo Paradiso in fantastic conference with the Silene bas-relief above it. The installation of tens of cymbals mimicked the carving’s composition whilst forming his symbol of the Third Paradise, a reconfiguration of the infinity sign with a third consecutive circle. Finally, presented in the middle of the Crayère Louise – dedicated to the image of the house’s signature cuvee – Luka Fineisen’s Awakening, an oversized rectangular snow globe, a gutted claw machine, replaced with speakers and feathers. Pulsing rhythms sent the white feathers rollicking through the air inside the structure. By pure chance, there happened to be a single Pommery-blue feather among the many.
These are an international cross-section of leading contemporary artists from the UK, Italy, France, Germany, the US, and more. It’s a testament to the power of Pommery’s name and mission they can bring together such a calibre of creatives every year to create an immersive experience for visitors to the Champagne region. Fortunately, there’s not a long wait until the unveiling of the next Experience Pommery!
Experience #18 opens on December 6, 2024.
vrankenpommery.com/visites/en
