INSTANTS
Milène Guermont is a « scientific Artist » who likes making the largest number discover her artworks, in particular within the public place.
[…] Always in this idea to dialogue with unpublished spaces, she has realized a very symbolic state commission: INSTANTS, a long-lasting sculpture conceived for the 70th anniversary of the Normandy Landing. Installed in the breach n° 00 of Utah Beach, this artwork is formed by several modules shaping “Polaroids” that each offers a sea view. Inside each one, veterans' handprints are engraved in the concrete. They suggest the historic breakthrough of the Allies while giving the beautiful part to the power of the poetic imagination of the author. For Guermont the art is a place for exchanges, conversational and interactive. The concrete is for her a boatman of feelings and of questions.
Her artworks push material to its limits and really give a strange impression of lightness. If they are frequently technological exploits, they are not less poetic.
Vincent Delaury
Art critic, extract from ART ET ANIMALITE, directed by Hélène Singer, Editions LIGEIA, 2016
Breakthrough in the Atlantic Wall
Commissioned to artist Milène Guermont, INSTANTS celebrates the 70th anniversary of the landing in the Second World War.
This sculpture is installed in the breach n° 00 (which is a classified site) of the “Atlantic Wall” at Utah Beach.
From the front view, INSTANTS materializes this "opening" by three modules in the shape of “Polaroïds”, thus making a reference to the "instant photographs" of the eponymous American company.
Inside each module made of white high performance fiber-reinforced concrete, landing veterans' hand prints are engraved thanks to the patented Colored Engraving to symbolize the breakthrough which they opened. INSTANTS draws the link between past and present by illustrating, in a contemporary and permanent way, this key episode of the Second World War.
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