To mark the 30th anniversary of the installation of the sculpture Site transitoire in the Crete Siennoises, the Site transitoire association invites you to spend two days with artist Jean-Paul Philippe and celebrate this unique work, which gave rise to another monument, Résonances, installed in the commune of La Roque d’Anthéron in Provence.

On Friday July 21 at 7 p.m., Jean-Paul Philippe will welcome you to the Site transitoire to talk about this emblematic monument. Then, at 8pm, we’ll head to the Limonaia at Villa Montechiaro in Siena for a screening of Ruxandra Pilsiu’s documentary “Verso il sole”.
A buffet will be served after the screening.

On Saturday July 22 at 6 p.m., Alessandro Griccioli’s photographic exhibition “Jean-Paul Philippe poète de l’espace” will be inaugurated at the Bottega di Jean-Paul Philippe in Asciano, and will provide an opportunity to share a drink together.

VERSO IL SOLE
Directed by Ruxandra Pilsiu
Edited by Noé Schmidt
Calibration: Dany Tambicannou
Mixing: Jean-Marc Pisani
Music
Composer Komitas :
Apricot Tree (Tsirani Tsar, ծիրանի ծառ)
Violin interpretation: Terenig Arzoumanian
Composition and interpretation Yannick Sablonniere

Verso il sole, part 1 and 2
From the encounter between a scientist and an artist, both fascinated by the Sun, a monumental work was born. Bernard Bigot was head of the ITER international research program, which aims to reproduce the reactions at work at the heart of the Sun; Jean-Paul Philippe is an internationally renowned visual artist. Between scientific quest and artistic inspiration, the “Résonances” monument soon took shape at La Roque d’Anthéron (Bouches-du-Rhône), a stone’s throw from the Abbey on Silvacane, overlooking the road through which components destined for the ITER machine transit. An enigmatic monument, full of symbols and subtle references, “Résonances” echoes the artist’s “Site Transitoire” in Asciano, Tuscany, and doubles as a replica of the “Wall Column” at the entrance to the ITER site. Bernard Bigot, who died in May 2022, had wanted this, convinced that “art and science share the same ambition, which is to reveal worlds and broaden everyone’s horizons. Art speaks to what is most intimate to us“.

JEAN-PAUL PHILIPPE, POÈTE DE L’ESPACE
Photographs Alessandro Griccioli
Curator Alessandra Rey

To mark the 30th anniversary of the installation of the monumental sculpture Site transitoire in the Crete region of Siena, the Site transitoire association, in homage to Jean-Paul Philippe and his creations, has invited photographer Alessandro Griccioli to follow the artist’s activities over the course of a year’s work.
Alessandro Griccioli has been photographing the Site transitoire and its events for several years, and with this new exhibition he adds a new page to this exchange with Jean-Paul Philippe by relating him to his own poetic space.
The photographs present the artist in the territories of his art, from the travertine quarries of Rapolano where he created the monument “Résonances“, a sculpture in dialogue with the Site transitoire, installed at La Roque d’Anthéron in Provence, to the intimate world of his workshops “La Bottega di Jean-Paul Philippe” in Asciano and “Évidence”, the house in Paris, recently inaugurated.
The photographs, in black and white only, recount and reinterpret these places of the artist’s, as well as the Jeanne Bucher Jaeger gallery in Paris during the “Archéologie intérieure” exhibition, where Alessandro Griccioli reveals surprising images of reflections and composes effects of the artist’s insertion when he observes a video of his monuments installed around the world.
The result is a new work, a demanding composition that emphasizes the founding gestures of Jean-Paul Philippe’s art, such as the plumb line, and reveals the details of the hands that engrave the stone.