CROMAWALTZ

CROMAWALTZ Permanent sculpture, P2 Les 4 Temps car park, La Défense esplanade, Paris

At the beginning there was an ordinary object: the entrance to a car park. One of those elements that are part of the everyday landscape, which people walk past without noticing it.

Our aim is to bring wonder into people's everyday lives. Making an ordinary object extraordinary is a simple and very powerful gesture.

To do so, we observed how the place is lived. La Défense has a long, open horizon, and there are few urban spaces like it in the world. People cross it on foot from one point to another, their gaze already elsewhere, and rarely look at what is around them.

We started from their movement. CROMAWALTZ is based on an optical effect, moiré: two overlapping patterns. The figures are not drawn on the work; they form in the eye of whoever moves, and the colours seem to float. No motor, no power supply: it is the pace of the people that produces the effect.

The three colours come from the place. Grey is the colour of the architecture, blue that of the sky, the only colour already present. Yellow is added to make the interference visible.

In front of the work people slow down, step aside, look for the right spot. Everyone finds a pace of their own. The waltz is not in the object: it is in the colours and in the people looking at them.