Philistine visits the Olivier Debré Contemporary Art Centre in Tours...

Having failed to visit inside the new contemporary art centre in Tours on previous visits (it is closed on Tuesdays) we took the opportunity to get inside on a recent late December visit to this fine city. I had done a little research into Olivier Debré The centre has  three main exhibition areas,a white gallery, a black gallery and an 11m high nave, as well as adjoining smaller galleries.

Olivier Debré (1920-1999), the centres generous benefactor, is featured in the white gallery His paintings under the heading “Les nympheas d'Olivier Debre”, apparently drawing a symbolic link to Claude Monets' 'Nympheas', are, well, large! Pauline features in the image below to give an idea of scale.One of the paintings lies on the floor to illustrate the painter's method, The artist explains:

"I have a longstanding practice of placing canvases on the floor,not least for strictly practical reasons and to prevent the often very liquid colours from running, I think that painting at an easel can create a detachment between the artist and the canvas, When I paint on the ground ,there ia a physical, sensual and almost sexual bond" Nothing to add here!

On our visit the 'nave' of the centre played host to 'Cactus Painting' by artist Ghada Amer, consists of 15,000 plants (cacti and succulents)to form a motif. We liked this!

The black gallery was given over to the work of artist  Frank Scurti, a series of 16 short videos on a variety of subjects which was apparently a departure from his usual work. Now where do I start?

Th first video takes you through the streets of Stockholm apparently tracing his initials you then move on to over 2 minutes of a soda can being randomly kicked along a street, filmed at street level and then...

The film above is of a young man's relationship with his car a 1960's Sunbeam convertible - and you get a 4 1/2 minute film of him licking his car...yes licking his car! 

Another was a 5 1/2 minute film showing how the dye from the sponsor's ad painted on the pitch passes onto the players strips...riveting,,,not! 

There was one of a drunk man trying to dribble a ball which was amusing for 30 seconds but lasted 2 minutes. I cannot recall the rest but they were equally compelling! Sadly you will not be able to replicate our experience as the exhibitions in the centre are temporary with these only on show until the end of January...no luck eh!