September 2025
I try to visit The Bourse de Commerce if for no other reason than the exhibitions that they have under the rotunda never cease to amaze. This time, I was able to see clinamen, an aquatic and musical installation by Céleste Boursier-Mougenot.
The installation was so soothing that one could sit all day and simply relax.
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The rotunda skylight sits directly above the installation
Notice how the light from the skylight is reflected in the bowls
From the other side of the pool, and due to the light, the bowls appear to float on the surface.
The installation from the second floor of the building
Biography of Céleste Boursier-Mougenot from the Bourse Website
Born in 1961 in Nice, Céleste Boursier-Mougenot lives and works in Sète. His works, which have been exhibited in contemporary art spaces for the last thirty years, both in France and abroad, should be seen primarily as those of a musician. After being the composer for author and director Pascal Rambert’s company Side One—Posthume Théâtre from 1985 to 1994, Boursier-Mougenot began to give an independent form to his music by creating installations. Starting with the most diverse situations and objects, from which he extracts their musical potential, he develops systems that extend the notion of a musical score to the most heterodox configurations of the materials and media he uses to generate, usually as a live performance, forms of sound that he describes as alive. Created in resonance with the architectural and environmental features of the exhibition space, each system provides the ideal framework for a listening experience that, offered up to the visitor’s eyes and ears, reveals the process that generates the music.