Les Baux-de-Provence, France
From June 4 to October 31, 2026, the historic village of Les Baux-de-Provence will host La Pierre en Résonance, a monumental exhibition by sculptor Audrey Guimard, curated by Clara Le Fort.
Set within one of Provence’s most dramatic rocky landscapes, the exhibition transforms stone into a living medium—one that speaks of memory, time, and the deep connection between nature and human creation.
Les Baux-de-Provence is itself carved from stone.
Built into the Alpilles mountains, the village and its castle rise directly from the limestone terrain, embodying a rare continuity between geology and architecture.
Here, stone is not simply material; it is foundation, archive, and presence.
It carries the imprint of wind, water, and centuries of human craftsmanship.
It is within this context that Guimard’s work unfolds, in direct dialogue with the surrounding landscape.
The exhibition presents a series of monumental sculptures, fountains, and totems made from blonde limestone, brass, and glass.
Installed throughout the village—from its entrances and squares to its historic ruins and esplanades—the works are not imposed upon the site but integrated into it.
Each piece responds to its surroundings, highlighting tensions, voids, and structural rhythms already present in the landscape.
Stone appears at once raw and refined, fractured and polished, as if continuously shaped by time.
At the heart of La Pierre en Résonance is the idea of transformation.
Guimard treats stone as a material in constant dialogue with light, water, and air.
Her sculptures seem to oscillate between permanence and fragility, density and transparency.
In her own words, each work becomes “a point of tension between permanence and change, between weight and vibration.”
This approach allows the exhibition to function less as a display of objects and more as a sensory journey through shifting perceptions of matter and space.
A key dimension of the project lies in its reflection on human gesture.
The exhibition recalls the long history of quarrying, building, and carving that has shaped the region.
Tool marks, engraved rhythms, and traces of extraction become part of the visual language.
These imprints connect contemporary sculpture to ancient practices, from Roman architecture in nearby Arles to medieval construction at the Château des Baux.
The act of making is inseparable from the act of digging, binding human labor to geological time.
Guimard’s artistic practice is deeply rooted in collaboration with local quarries such as Sarragan and Fontvieille.
These sites, still active today, preserve centuries-old techniques of stone extraction and cutting.
By working closely with quarry workers and artisans, the artist extends these traditions into a contemporary context, where craftsmanship, design, and land art converge.
Her sculptures thus carry both historical resonance and present-day innovation.
Curator Clara Le Fort frames the exhibition as an invitation to slow perception.
Rather than dominating the landscape, the works listen to it.
They amplify what is already there—the weight of history, the silence of stone, the shifting light of the Alpilles.
Visitors are encouraged to move through the village differently, to experience stone not as static architecture but as a living, responsive presence.
In this way, La Pierre en Résonance transforms Les Baux-de-Provence into an open-air dialogue between past and present.
Stone becomes both subject and storyteller, revealing the deep time of geology alongside the human traces embedded within it.
The exhibition ultimately offers more than visual experience; it becomes an encounter with material memory itself—where landscape, art, and history resonate as one continuous body.
Project name: La Pierre en Résonance
Designer /Artist: Audrey Guimard
Curator: Clara Le Fort
Manufacturer: Audrey Guimard, Sarragan Quarry (Les Baux-de-Provence), Fontvieille / Taillades quarry operations
