Bryan McCormack, When Joris Ivens Meets Hraesvelgr, 2010

I’ve passed this sculpture several times, it’s at the top of a steep hill and I’m always happy to see it, but at 12 metres high it’s a little too tall to hug. The hill is in Domaine National St. Cloud, a beautiful heritage park that was one of the places Louis XVI hid during the French revolution, Marie Antoinette’s rose garden is still there. Its lakes, topiary and fountains is like something out of Alice in Wonderland, but the view of Paris in the distance brings you back to reality. Due to its location on the outskirts of the city it’s always very quiet which makes you feel, like Alice a bit of an intruder.

The sculpture is by Irish artist Bryan McCormack I couldn’t find much information about him other than that he was born in 1972. However, the commissioning of this sculpture was obviously very important as it was inaugurated by theMinister of Culture, Frédéric Mitterrand (also nephew of the ex-President François Mitterand), along with the first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy.

Perhaps it is the subject of the work that made it so prestigious. Joris Ivens, who is referred to in the title of the piece is a Dutch film-maker, in Paris, cinema islike a religion. In England someone would ask you, “have you seen that new film with Kirsten Dunst in it?” in Paris they would say, “have you caught the latest Lars von Trier?” It’s not even about snobbery, it just seems to be ingrained in to the culture, like a taste for wine and strong cheese that other cultures can take or leave.

Joris Ivens directed over 80 films between 1912 and 1988 and continually re-visited the theme of wind. This sculpture refers specifically to the 1966 film, ‘Pourle Mistral’. The Mistral is the name of a powerful and mysterious wind that blows around the coast of the South-East of France in cities like Marseille, Nice and Cannes. Located along the Mediterranean Sea, these are hot cities in the summer but a pleasant day can disappear in a few minutes when the Mistral sets in. Ivens was often nicknamed the “Flying Dutchman”, another reference to wind as it relates back mythology of a rebel ship that is forever doomed to sail the sea’s high winds.

The other name mentioned in the title, Hraesvelgr, is that of the Nordic wind giant from Norse mythology often represented holding a globe with wings on his back. Half-man, half-bird, Hraesvelgr could not fly himself but by flapping his wings he would send his children ‘the winds’ around the world on his behalf.  McCormack’s sculpture features strong fabric wings held up by flexible cable so that they can move along with the wind, harmonising with the trees around it.