FRANCE: Streetart Nice - Jean Médecin - Place Masséna 15 - Conversation à Nice - JAUME PLENSA

„Conversation à Nice“

These sculpture artworks were made by the Spanish artist JAUME PLENSA, who was born in 1955 in Barcelona, where he still lives and works. The 12 meters high sculptural creations were made in 2007 with stainless steel, polyester resin and fibreglass. The seven figures designed for Place Masséna represent the different continents. At night, soft variations in colour symbolize the dialogue between the communities making up our society. They invite passers-by to look up and rediscover the sky of Nice.

There are several other artworks of this kind around the city. Following the tramway, a collection of public artworks has today found its place in Nice’s urban landscape creating the largest open air museum of contemporary art in the South of France. You can find works at the stations Las Planas by EMMANUEL SAULNIER and ANGE LECCIA, at Virgile Barel by MICHAEL CRAIG-MARTIN, at Valrose Université by JEAN-MICHEL OTHONIEL, at Vauban by STEPHANE MAGNIN and PASCAL PINAUD, at Palais des expositions by GUNDA FÖRSTE, at Gare Thiers by GUNDA FÖRSTER, at Jean Médecin by YANN KERSALE, at Massona by JAUME PLENSA and at Cathédrale by SARKIS.

JAUME PLENSA had already used this concept of statues in various sitting positions on high pedestals several times, and we have another installation by him from Gothenburg in Sweden in our archive. One of his particularly well-known series, which can almost be described as one of his trademarks, is his „Body of Knowledge“, which you can find meanwhile at numerous places all around the world. We already have several of this sculpture series in the archive, including artworks in Borås in Sweden, Frankfurt in Germany, at the Musée des Beaux-Arts Montréal in Canada and in Griffintown Montréal in Canada.

Monument Historique – Place Masséna – 1822-1860

The Place Masséna sits partly on a torrent, the Paillon, which rises in the mountains forty kilometers north of Nice and flows into the Mediterranean a short distance away. Originally, therefore, two squares were created after a design by architect JOSEPH VERNIER and commissioned by Ville de Nice. The first square, laid out in 1822, corresponds to the semi-circular square backing onto the old town, on the left bank of the river. A bridge – the Pont Saint-Charles, or Pont-Neuf – linked it since 1824 to the right bank of the Paillon, where the large, rectangular square was laid out from 1835.

While the porticoes were taken from the Rue de Rivoli in Paris, the neoclassical decor of the buildings erected between 1840 and 1860 was clearly Italian in inspiration. In 1880, the Paillon was covered at the site of today’s Espace Masséna to build a Casino, which was demolished in 1979. At the end of the 19th century, this covering was extended to the site of the Albert ler garden from Place Masséna to the sea, then progressively extended northwards, but the river still flows under its arches. – Ville de Nice