Le Voyage à Nantes | Estuaire | Les Tables de Nantes | Les Machines de l’île | Château des ducs de Bretagne | Mémorial de l’abolition de l’esclavage
Abbaye Royale de Fontevraud

“Mort en été”
Claude Lévêque

Installation withdrawn for an indefinite period.


The installation was made for the abbey’s great dormitory.

Take a drive into a dream world then float off free into the differing moods of the Loire and the red dawn lights of the aurora borealis. Visitors may lie down in the boats if they wish.

Claude Lévêque has been showing his work since the 1980s in many places all over the world: museums, galleries, art centres, and various other spaces such as industrial wasteland, shops, public parks. His work involves memories of childhood wonderment, but also investigates methods of control and oppression used in contemporary societies. The pieces he creates examine space and architecture, what they are used for and what they mean, and the multiplicity of relationships, both mental and more concrete, they engage with the public.

Claude Lévêque’s spectacular installation-led work uses objects, light and sound. The powerful effect felt by viewers will lead them to wander along their own paths into areas of uncertainty.

Fontevraud, a cultural and artistic center
At the heart of the Loire Valley, the Abbey of Fontevraud is a world heritage site, formerly a monastic centre and then a penitentiary in the 19th and 20th centuries. Today the abbey has become a Cultural Centre and Meeting-Place, programming a cultural events calendar that is sustained by its special history.

Every summer, a choice is made of one particular function or aspect that governed the community of human lives once present here, and connecting today with issues from contemporary life. Each time, the Abbey of Fontevraud takes the opportunity to commission a work of art for a particular space where an artist is able to reinterpret the special aspect selected for visitors to experience.

— Artwork co-produced with Le Voyage à Nantes, as part of the Estuaire 2012 events calendar.


Artwork audio commentary