Monumental chagall
‘During the last 25 years of his life Marc Chagall decided not to limit his work only to the drawing table or the easel but also, as many other great modem artists have done, to extend his creativity into the field of monumental art. Perhaps ‘monumental’ is not totally accurate; it is rather an art which is tied to and part of the place for which it was created and this, for Chagall, was inevitable a ‘sacred place’ even if the religious denominations involved might be quite various from mosques to chapels to synagogues. When the location was not overtly sacred, then it had to be a place for the performance of music or one in which people came together to improve their understanding of one another as in the United Nations Building. The exhibition includes Chagall’s tapestries and mosaics but principally, of course, it focuses on stained glass. These designs for glass grew out of a chance meeting between Chagall and the great artist and glass-maker Charles Marq. Had the meeting not taken place, things could have been very different: perhaps Chagall would not have developed the passion for this form, one of the most difficult of artistic expressions. Sylvie Forestier, curator of the Chagall Museum in Nice, has organized this exhibition in Rimini with the direct participation of Charles Marq and it constitutes the first attempt to display Chagall’s monumental work in an exhibition setting. The preparatory drawings and/or reproductions of all Chagall’s work for the stained glass window in the Chapel of the Cordeliers in Sorrebourg are on view. After this section devoted to the origin and development of these particular works, there are a series of accurately reproduced settings designed to convey the idea of the original building in which the works are set. Special slides and visual materials recreate the sensation of being inside a Chagall interior. During the Meeting week an encounter will be organized with Sylvie Forestier, Curator of the Marc Chagall National Biblical Message Museum of Nice, and Charles Marq, Master glassmaker. After the Meeting, the exhibition be available for display in other Italian towns.’