Omaggio a Mark Rothko
by Nathalie Junod Ponsard
23 October 2007 - 06 January 2008
Atelier Palazzo delle Esposizioni

The spaces of the Laboratorio d'arte, designed with the architects Daniele Durante_studio bv36 and Adele Savino host Pénétrer l'invisible, the permanent installation by Nathalie Junod Ponsard, inside the tunnel of light. This work of art creates a dialogue with the major exhibitions of the Palazzo delle Esposizioni and, for the opening, introduces Homage to Mark Rothko by the French artist.

Pénétrer l'invisible
a luminous permanent installation
A corridor like a wall of light that absorbs and envelops in an endless vortex. The intense light of complementary colours draws rings that lead the visitors inside this passage. Half of the rings present a variation of colours, the other half made up of complementary colours set in to contrast them. The lights advance and their progression increases in intensity. The lights expand on the wall, then dim out, others advance in turn, creating new combinations. Crossing the corridor the visitors move between walls, surrounded by a whirlpool of colour, which changes with their movements drawing them into a visual vertigo. Like waves, these luminous bands move in regular and infinite successions. An experimentation of light as a living performance and as an experience of the physical and perceptive presence of the spectator. The internal walls of the corridor are cut by electric intermittences that redraw shifting geometries. This symmetric alternation of lights produces stupor and disorientation. The luminous vibrations are hypnotic and guide the visitor into a conscious visual immersion, into the invisible.

Omaggio a Rothko
Three sides of the cube feature three horizontal lines of light. Each wall is a picture of light. The three lines of different heights, vary in colour and intensity and overlap, mix, radiate. The visitors are immersed in light to find themselves in the same active relationship sought by Rothko and regarded by him as a total experience. The spectator has the sensation of being inside the work of art, absorbed by the colour and oblivious to all references to external reality. The work of art becomes a refuge.
In Nathalie Junod Ponsard's installation the light seems to go beyond the walls, fusing and creating a sensation of suspension in the visitor, as if one's body were to lose all weight and be enveloped in the light.

Nathalie Junod Ponsard
She has exhibited her works in important national museums, such as Singapore Art Museum (2002), the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation (2004), the Pompidou Centre (2005). She has participated in a number of international events among which the French May a Hong Kong (1998), the Biennial of Visual Arts in Singapore (2001), the first Notte Bianca (2002) and the Museum Night in Paris (2005), Luce di Pietra in Rome (2007) where she "illuminated" the room of mosaics of the acrobats (3rd century BC) in the subterranean chambers of Palazzo Farnese.
Nathalie Junod Ponsard uses light as her principle means of expression; glow tubes and projectors covered in coloured gelatine which transforms the cold white light into coloured matter. Her research takes her into an exploration of how light influences the biological system of humans, discovering the limitations of the possibility of perception and exploring the vibrating effects of colour on the psyche, capable of modifying one's mood and behaviour.