Art Talk – L’art contemporain à Notre-Dame de Paris

Location: Art Talk Area, Luxembourg Art Week

Language: French

Guest Speakers:

Alberto Fabio Ambrosio, Professor of the History and Theology of Religions; PhD in Modern and Contemporary History; Habilitation (HDR) in Theology

Marc Chauveau, Dominican friar and art historian

Between Religious Heritage and Contemporary Creation

The refurbishment of Notre-Dame's interior following the fire has provided an opportunity to commission works from contemporary artists. The cathedral's internal layout is divided between the space set aside for worship and the space for pilgrimage. At the centre runs the main axis of nave, transept and choir, for which new liturgical furnishings were commissioned from Guillaume Bardet. Around it, a route along the chapels of the side aisles is conceived as a pilgrimage path. For these chapels, a set of seven tapestries was commissioned from Miquel Barceló and Michael Armitage, a series of six stained-glass windows from Claire Tabouret, and a new reliquary for the Crown of Thorns from Sylvain Dubuisson. These commissions invite reflection on how contemporary art can be integrated into a religious building, and on the relationship between historic heritage and contemporary creation.

Biography

A Dominican friar and art historian, Brother Marc Chauveau initiated a dialogue between art and architecture at the Convent of La Tourette, built by Le Corbusier. Between 2007 and 2024, he invited artists including François Morellet, Alan Charlton, Anne and Patrick Poirier, Anish Kapoor, Lee Ufan, Anselm Kiefer and Giuseppe Penone.

A Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters (Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres), he designed the scenography for the Chapelle Matisse museum in Vence (2017) and initiated the commission of eleven stained-glass windows and an Aubusson tapestry from Vera Molnar for the Chapel of the Holy Cross at Lérins Abbey (2024).

Alberto Fabio Ambrosio is Professor of Theology and History of Religions at the Luxembourg School of Religion & Society. His main interest lies in the religious as it manifests itself across the various religions, and in its interactions with different areas of culture. After years spent exploring the mystical dimension of Islam, he now devotes himself to studying the relationship between fashion and the religious, developing a theological reflection grounded in these socio-cultural phenomena.