Sculpture, Pyramide du Louvre

Location :  Pyramide du Louvre, Paris Ier
Architect :  Barthelemy TOGUO (artiste)
Scope :  Conception technique, études EXE et suivi d’exécution
Date :  Septembre 2022 - Janvier 2023
Collaborators :  Galerie : HdM Gallery; Conception architecturale : Canal Architecture; Production : Arter; Réalisation et montage : Fabrica.

Pillar of the Missing Migrants, Barthélémy Toguo

For the exhibition Things. A History of Still Life, shown from 12 October 2022 to 23 January 2023 at the Louvre, Cameroonian artist Barthélémy Toguo created a monumental sculpture beneath the Pyramid.

Measuring 18m high, the piece takes the form of a stack of 120 bundles attached to a mast embedded at its base. This latter was made in three sections of steel tubing of different dimensions. It was embedded by means of a steel plate, stiffened and bolted with pre-stressing onto the fixing plate provided for the purpose on top of the central column that aligns, a floor below, with the point of the Pyramid.

The bundles are hung on the mast by means of laser-cut buttonholes in the tubes and fixed by a system of lifting rings and nuts. The bundles vary in size from 0.8m to 2m, according to the artist’s design. They are made in different African wax print fabrics and are filled with fireproofed polystyrene balls.

The Fabrica workshop produced and assembled the structure and developed and suspended the bundles, while T/E/S/S designed the mast, the fixing systems and the fabrication of the bundles. The work was installed during two nights, between 19 and 21 September 2022.