Architectural ruins take center stage in art installation at iconic Paris department store

From Pompeii to Giza, architectural ruins fascinate historians and captivate the public.

Le Bon Marché Rive Gauche, the famed, 1800s-built Paris department store, is likely counting on this as a strategy for attracting shoppers (and getting them to stick around) with its latest art installation, a wire mesh-and-metal work by Italian sculptor Edoardo Tresoldi.

With “Aura,” Tresoldi fashioned two outsize neoclassical domes, one composed of corrugated sheet metal and one of wire mesh, each offering a ghostly Renaissance-era counterpoint to the department store’s 19th-century interiors. The goal, Tresoldi says, is to get shoppers to think about the space they’re in and consider the passage of time.

This isn’t Tresoldi’s first time drawing on architectural themes for his work: In April 2016, the artist debuted a full-scale, wire mesh model of a 13th-century basilica lost to time in Italy’s Puglia region. Tresoldi has also produced other pieces in wire mesh across the U.K. and in Europe.

In previous years, Le Bon Marché has exhibited work by artists Ai Wei Wei and Chiharu Shiota in its courtyard. You can ogle “Aura” below and take a closer look over at Designboom.

Via: Designboom