The Center des monuments nationaux presents the exhibition Blur The Edges, Love One Another by Sean Scully at Château d’Oiron from 23 May – 6 October 2024.

Sean Scully is one of the most important artists of his generation whose work changed the paradigm of abstraction by merging the minimal character of American abstraction with the metaphor and spirituality of the European tradition.

He constructs his paintings and sculptures from simple shapes, intuitively stacked and interlocked until they occupy all the space given to them and seem to harbour something sacred within them.

He is interested in the intrinsic qualities of materials, whether it is the colours and sensuality of paint, the delicacy of the rusty surfaces of Corten steel or the contrast between the smooth and rough surfaces of stone.

Scully's works are both physical and sensitive, at the intersection of the material and emotional worlds.

Le Centre des Monuments Nationaux, wishing to broaden the visitor experience towards the castle park, invited Sean Scully to create a monumental sculpture in the spirit of the constructions that appeared in English gardens in the 18th century to invite people to discover a variety of viewpoints and landscapes.

The artist chose to create a Stone Tower, a formidable “fortress” in local stone, whose mass and vertical angles will echo the scale and architecture of the castle. This first permanent sculpture by Sean Scully in a French public institution is currently being created and will be unveiled in the fall of 2024.

Because his sculptures and paintings are closely linked, the artist selected a group of eight paintings for Oiron in order to present the permanent sculpture in the broader context of his work: abstract paintings on aluminium composed of flowing horizontal and vertical blocks of colour and porous spaces between them.

The title of the exhibition Blur The Edges, Love One Another refers to these spaces between the blocks of paint – or stone – and thus, to the idea of the importance of negotiating and blurring boundaries between people, nations, towards a place of love and tolerance.

In the entrance hall of the castle, making the link between the exterior and the interior, Venice Stack (2020), a sculpture of stacked Murano glass blocks, a real three-dimensional stained glass window imbued with a pictorial sensitivity, will welcome the visitors.

Born in 1945 in Dublin, Scully grew up in South London and moved to New York in 1975. Today, he lives and works between New York, London, Aix-en Provence and Bavaria.

The exhibition is dedicated to the memory of Jill Silverman van Coenegrachts.