Paysages à boire / Animal – Mineral – Vegetal
Paysages à boire (trans. Drinking landscapes) is a research-creation led by the French artist Anthony Duchêne. This work is inspired by discovering the description of the atypical technics of winegrowers, which lead to an artistic production into vineyards. These creations are also the starting point of a collaborative cuvée with different winegrowers and their technics.
By taking the landscape as a starting point, Anthony Duchêne intends to explore and highlight specific, natural and atypical techniques implemented by winegrowers who base their vision and their work on the interaction between the “animal, mineral and vegetable worlds”.
“This will neither be a guide to wine, nor a sum of portraits of winegrowers … but a course organized over meetings with peasant-winegrowers in search of a balance between nature and biodiversity.” Anthony Duchêne and Dominique Hutin
Close to a collection, enriched with a visual approach, Anthony Duchêne gives many conferences along with tastings of cuvées to share his experience with people.
Their ambition is to transcribe the delicate link between landscape ecosystems (fauna, soil, plants) and the organoleptic landscape that help mold the glass of wine.
In the frame of Table and Territory, Anthony Duchêne presented his work in many events :
Zone Sensible, Saint-Denis (France), September, 18th, 2021:
Anthony Duchêne was invited to present his work Paysages à boire in the heart of the Zone sensible urban garden in Saint-Denis. This event took place within various actions organized by Table and Territory with the Parti Poétique.
Installed around a table, immersed in the center of the abundant nature of the garden, Anthony Duchêne invited the citizens to a wine tasting of the differents cuvées around which the artist was able to work within his artistic project.
This tasting was also an opportunity to discuss and question our relationship to soils through wine and the artistic gaze of Anthony Duchêne.
Art Center, La Ferme du Buisson, Noisel (France), October, 23rd, 2021:
As part of the Atterir exhibition which took place at the Art Center of La Ferme du Buisson, Anthony Duchêne was invited for an afternoon to offer the experience of his artistic project Paysages à boire to visitors.
The artist took part in a conference on living alongside journalist and columnist Dominique Hutin, trying to highlight the relationships between minerals, plants, and animals in the vineyards.
In the continuity of the reflection of this conference, Anthony Duchêne offered a wine tasting to the visitors.
Even more, wine tasting is also an opportunity to apprehend a work of art beyond the visual. The visitor comes into intimate contact with the artistic work through smell and taste. By integrating the work in him through these senses, he becomes an actor of the work by feeling it, drinking it, and creating a real link with the wine proposed by the artist.
Beyond the work, the tasting is also a means of physically integrating the artist’s research around the land of oneself.
As a real project of research, this event was also the occasion to go further through the exhibition where the artist has some art pieces exposed.
International city of Art, Paris (France), December, 08th, 2021:
Anthony Duchêne participated in the day dedicated to new gastronomy around the arts, food, and ecological territories which took place at the international city of art in Paris.
This day was an opportunity for the artist to make discover natural wine through his work Paysages à boire, notably by offering a tasting of natural wine and listening to vintages.
Moreover, this day allowed a reflection on soils and his artistic project through a discussion with denis Chartier, researcher and specialist in soils and natural wines.
La cour des demoiselles, Marseille (France), February, 13rd, 2022:
As part of a meal offered at the restaurant of La cour des demoiselles, Anthony Duchêne was invited to present and offer a tasting of his cuvées for two hours. After this presentation, the restaurant proposed a menu consisting of five services accompanied by wines tasted.
The menu named “ANIMAL” directly takes up the basis of the artist’s research work around plants, animals, and minerals.
This meal was an opportunity to deepen the reflection around the wines presented by the artist.
Musée Estrisne, Saint-Remy-de-Provence (France), February, 2nd, 2022:
It is within the Estrine Museum itself, an exceptional example of 18th century Provençal architecture, that Anthony Duchêne was invited for the presentation of his work Paysages à boire.
The presentation took place in the form of a tasting of the artist’s cuvées, allowing visitors to directly immerse themselves in his work. A conference also took place around the work of the artist’s wine to deepen his research work with the participants.
Future dates of conferences along with tasting are planned in Alsace (France), Saint-Remy-de-Provence (France) and in Palais de Tokyo (Paris, France).
List of peasant-winegrowers:
Domaine Léon Barral – Faugères, Languedoc – France
Wander by Samos – Samos – Greece
Cadavres Exquis – Pertuis, Provence – France
Les Frères Soulier – Saint Hilaire d’Ozilhan – France
Domaine Ledogar – Ferrals, Corbières – France
Sicus Terrers Mediterranis – Penedes – South Catalonia
Domaine Christian Binner – Ammerschwihr, Alsace – France
Domaine de l’Arbre blanc – Saint Sandoux – France
Ferme de la Quintillère – St-Maurice-sur-Dargoire, Rhône – France
Domaine Mythopia – Arbaz – Switzerland
Domaine 2 NaturKinder – Kitzingen, Germany
Zulu / Recerca – Roussillon – France
Anthony Duchêne:
Anthony Duchêne is a visual artist who graduated from the Ecole Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Marseille. He develops a hybrid work of sculpture, drawing and object inspired by the workings of nature and the animal world. Crisscrossing the universe of taste and olfactory sensations, his creations evoke figures of hybridization and mutations of plant and animal species, inspiring him to unique combinations. In 2012, he received the Science Po prize for contemporary art with the work “Empyreume”, a sculpture offering a wine tasting truncated around the family of empyreumatic aromas. More recently passionate about living wines, he works with peasant-winegrowers to study the functioning of soils, the balance of nature and biodiversity.
