Meurtrière, Nicolas Milhé, 2012

concrete, mirror, 300 × 200 × 25 cm. Coproduced by Galerie Samy Abraham and 40mcube.
*Private area Chapelle saint-Léger. Visible only during temporary exhibitions, guided tours or by appointment.

"The work of Nicolas Milhé is openly concerned with the symbolic forms of power, while at the same time invoking an aesthetic transposition that allows it to transcend any univocal reading. In this way, architecture becomes the target of numerous misappropriations. With his new concrete and mirror skylight for the Jardin des Tuileries, Nicolas Milhé plays on a form borrowed from the medieval architecture of fortified castles, as well as on the scale and representation of the landscape. Slot openings are linked to defence and attack, but they are also linked to vision, as they allow us to see without being seen. The loophole reveals a strip of vertical landscape that changes according to the defensive position adopted by the besieged. Paul Virilio has described "the relationship between the function of the weapon and that of the eye [...]. The aiming slit, like the folding of an eyelid, narrows the field of vision to what is essential, to the target, in order to protect the internal organ - in this case the person aiming - but this protection corresponds to an increase in acuity. The narrowing of the technical pupil eliminates both the risk of impact that destroys the human organ and the uninteresting flanks of the landscape; there is synaesthesia: protection achieves acuity and acuity, in turn, protects. (*) The addition of the mirror to the face of the sculpture makes this scopic arsenal even more complex. Taking up Robert Smithson's most enduring aesthetic device, Nicolas Milhé obscures the massive presence of defensive architecture with the reflection of the landscape that faces it. He also invokes some of Dan Graham's projects to create a mise en abyme of the observer's posture, as he finds himself observed and immersed in the reflection of the paths of the Jardin des Tuileries.
Text taken from an essay by Audrey Illouz on the work of Nicolas Milhé, 2011. * Paul Virilio, Bunker archaeologyParis: Éditions Galilée, 1975, p. 59.