When I was in the midst of research overwhelm trying to pick just a few Loire Valley chateaux to visit, Chateau de Chaumont made my list instantly, solely because each year they host the International Garden Festival, in which teams of international landscape designers create gardens based on a yearly theme. Sold!
As it happened, the temporary gardens were disappointing, but my experience of the chateau was enthralling. In my early investigations online, I was so excited about the garden festival that I completely failed to note the chateau’s commitment to truly international art on the estate. And oh, my god, though I did have high expectations for something special from the garden festival, I was bowled over by this might-have-been-fairly-standard tourist experience in which instead the castle was just a backdrop gallery for world-class art, often site-specific, with pieces both permanent and rotating and truly diverse…the surprise and the bounty! Also, the chateau’s permanent gardens were lovely, it was just that the special garden exhibits didn’t do much for me.
Pictured below:
- Duy Anh Nhan Duc, Champ Céleste in which dandelions were suspended in geometrical designs and patterns above a mirror, so it became an endless field of dandelions. Dandelions in the donkey stables!
- El Anatsui, XiXe
- Gerda Steiner & Jörg Lenzlinger, Les Pierres et Le Printemps (Stones and Spring)
- Andy Goldsworthy, Cairn
- Eva Jospin, Folie
- Cornelia Konrads, Passage
- El Anatsui, Ugwu
- François Méchain, L’Arbre Aux Échelles
