Imagined for lille3000’s 7th edition, the Golden Monoliths by Spanish artist SpY guide the visitors and participants of the parade to the heart of the city and its Fiesta. The gold titans seem like a modern take on the 17th century city gates, that welcomed the opening of carnivals and processions. They transform the urban landscape of Lille through the installation of fourteen golden shipping containers in a vertical position, aligned along its main street.
This monumental intervention reconfigures the everyday perception of the public environment, turning industrial objects into symbols that alter our understanding of space.
The street ceases to be a simple space of transit and becomes a ritual corridor, a passageway between
Originally conceived as utilitarian structures for global transportation and trade, the containers are decontextualized and coated in gold. Far from being a decorative gesture, this treatment converts their industrial purpose into an artistic resignification that oscillates between the functional and the symbolic.
SpY subverts the original identity of the containers through an installation that transforms the utilitarian into the mythological, in an exercise in spatial perception that invites reflection on the cult of consumption in modern society.
Come closer and use your senses to uncover the secrets that some of the monoliths hold for you.
Access
Rue Faidherbe (Rambla)
Rue Faidherbe, 59000 Lille
Metro: line 1 or 2 – Gare Lille Flandres
V’Lille station: Gare Lille Flandres
Go there with Ilévia: www.ilevia.fr/itineraires
↑ © Maxime Dufour Photographies