Does the hand want to bend the tree, or straighten it out? Is it trying to overpower it or help it regain its natural angle?
On view until January 2025
At first glance, Max Coulon’s sculptures have a rough, playful quality that harkens back to a primal state of the collective imagination. Out of his groups of gentle forms emerge strange creatures: characters, animal figures, or sometimes hybrid architectures that can be both serious and comical.
Le Voyage à Nantes asked the artist to work on the “leaning” pine tree near the Duchesse Anne streetcar stop: this pine seems to have defied the laws of gravity by growing horizontally. In a powerful gesture of apparent simplicity, Coulon grips it with a gigantic hand carved directly from the trunk of a Sequoia tree.
Do not climb the tree or the sculpture.
Max Coulon was born in 1994. He lives in Paris and works in the Poush studios in Aubervilliers.
He is represented by the Romero Paprocki (France) and Nosbaum Reding (Luxembourg, Brussels) galleries.
Thanks to the “Nature et jardins” Department of the City of Nantes
Duchesse Anne-Château, 44000 Nantes
How to get there?
Parking(s) nearby: Parking Château, Parking Gare Château, Parking Baco-LU 1 côté gare, Parking Feydeau, Parking Cité des Congrès, Parking Baco-LU 2 côté CHU, Parking Decré-Bouffay
Public transport: Duchesse Anne-Chateau, Duchesse Anne-Château, Lieu Unique, Monteil
Self-service bicycles: Duchesse Anne (n°49), Lieu Unique (n°61), Baco (n°52), Château (n°50), Gare De Nantes Nord (n°60), Strasbourg (n°3), Verdun (n°48), Gare De Nantes Sud (n°70), Cité Internationale Des Congrès (n°54), Foch (n°32)
Possibility of perceiving the work through touch.