In 19th-century Europe, large panoramas flourished, housed in the domes of circular buildings, where they provided visitors with the illusion of being surrounded by urban landscapes, harbours, or battlefields. Distant heirs of these immersive devices, the installations of François Morellet, Tadashi Kawamata, and Véronique Joumard present abstract or interactive versions of this tradition.
Drawing on Renaissance models, Martial Raysse revisits the panoramic format in a purely pictorial space. Like other 20th- and 21st-century painters, he uses the panorama to represent vast spaces of cosmic dimensions, whose full perception exceeds human vision.
Inspired by the boundary between earth and sky, the elongated format serves as the classic support for panoramas, as demonstrated by the triptych of Bang Hai Ja, or more radically, the narrow strip on which Beatriz Milhazes arranges semi-abstract, semi-figurative motifs along the horizon.
Responding from a distance to the painting by Peter Doig that opens the exhibition, the video by Luxembourg artist Su Mei-Tse, in which a cellist plays against a natural backdrop, introduces a sensory dimension to the representation of landscape.
