Guillaume Aubry, And I will close my eyes when you disappear

To celebrate the centenary of the commission for the villa Noailles in Hyères by Charles and Marie-Laure de Noailles from architect Robert Mallet-Stevens, the team at the Art Centre of National Interest at the villa Noailles organised a competition open to visual artists in the spring of 2023, leading to a project by architect, artist, and Doctor of Arts Guillaume Aubry. This project was selected by a jury of qualified personalities and representatives of the various departments involved (Drac, Monuments historiques, curators, directors of art institutions, etc.), a choice confirmed by the Conseil national des œuvres dans l’espace public during the September 2023 committee.
Co-founder of the Freaks architecture studio in Paris, Guillaume Aubry is also a graduate of the Paris School of Fine Arts, a teacher of spatial design at the École des Arts Décoratifs and has a PhD in creation on the aesthetic experience of sunsets.
The name of his installation, Et je fermerai les yeux quand tu disparaîtras, is taken from an intertitle in the film Les Mystères du château du Dé by Man Ray and Jacques-André Boiffard (1929), one of the first filmed archives of the house at the time it was commissioned. Charles de Noailles had declared to Mallet-Stevens: “I want the morning sun in the bedrooms and the afternoon sun in the living room, because the sun is the reason why I will go to this house.” This is why the villa is south-facing (despite the rules normally applied in the region), with the façade following the whole path of the sun.
The artwork takes advantage of this situation and consists in the installation of twelve brass discs on the building’s façade, each in turn reflecting the sunlight. The discs, measuring 28 centimeters in diameter (i.e. one five-billionth of a sun), are mounted on a metal ball joint, itself screwed into the existing masonry, in compliance with hanging and reversibility recommendations for a building listed as a historic monument. It is therefore a project that blends discreetly into the architecture of the villa Noailles but does not occupy any floor space or interfere with any of the art centre’s extensive cultural activities.