Space

Jean-Pierre Raynaud is a French artist of international renown born in 1939 in Courbevoie. He is well known for his works, especially his flower pots, but also for his works made with white tiles with black joints, which have become his trademark. The work Space was commissioned by the City of Mulhouse with financial assistance from the State. This is a political will to set up a real programme of public commissions of works of art. For Deputy Michel Samuel-Weis, Mulhouse was one of the last cities not to have made any public commissions and was short of works of art in public space. The sculpture presents a circular and ascending set of eight erected white columns. The work is fairly uncluttered, originating in the ground from which these eight columns or steles rise, following a mathematical progression that draws them towards the sky. The whiteness of the sculpture confronts the brutality of the noise of the nearby motorway circuit and, even at night, it is lifted up by car lights. For the artist, it is at the same time a «work of art, a piece of architecture, a signal, an enigma», but which creates a new space in the city, a public space with free thought.