A perfect cone of white salt, taller than I am. A low, circular mound of fine, granular soil that rises to meet me, like a bulging ocean swell. Not a speck escapes its edge. An almost hemispherical dome of smooth, compacted clay, whose surface cracked as it dried from the mould it was cast in. The hemisphere stands on the floor like an igloo in the desert. Nearby, a wall of beeswax curves away, with a slightly peppery, honey smell. It leads me to a bristling stockade of tangled branches, foliage and autumnal berries. Inside, it suddenly feels like Christmas, which I doubt is quite the effect the artist was aiming for.
American artist Meg Webster’s sculptures are round things disposed about a circular space that rises to a distant glass and iron roof at the Bourse de Commerce, originally built in the 1760s as a wheat silo and exchange. Later it became the Paris Commodities Exchange, and now the Bourse is home to French billionaire Francois Pinault’s art collection, which numbers more than 10,000 works. Dramatic, oddly vulnerable and beautiful, Webster’s art refers back to minimal art, but its materiality is somehow more primal than that. I last saw her work at the Dia Art Foundation at Beacon, New York. Jessica Morgan, Dia’s director, has curated Minimal, working with Pinault’s vast collection and loans from other institutions.
