French art installation LOTUS officially made its U.S. debut in Naperville with an opening reception on Saturday night.
LOTUS makes U.S. debut
“It is the first time that this has been exhibited in the U.S. It’s coming here from France, and it is a series of six lotus flowers that will be illuminated with LED lights, and they’re going to be floated out onto the quarry, and they’ll be here from September 26 through October 24,” said Erin Franczyk, treasurer for ArtForum: The Naperville Partnership for Public Arts.
LOTUS was designed by Nicolas Paolozzi, a French artist from the group MODULE. The flowers are each roughly 13 feet wide by 11 feet high and will be illuminated from dusk to 10 p.m.
“It’s like a big lotus flower with LED tubes inside, with moving light,” said Alban Guerry-Suire, the LOTUS technical director from MODULE. “The idea is to put the human as like insect size, so that’s why Nicolas designed it really big.”
Collaboration in Naperville
In the days leading up to the launch, ArtForum members and volunteers were hard at work assembling the LOTUS displays.
“We trailered in six floating docks on two separate trailers. Each of the docks weighs about 450 to 500 pounds apiece,” Franczyk said. “The next part was unboxing all of the artwork, and then systematically we’re being guided by Alban, who’s from MODULE in France, on how to assemble these.”
They were joined by members of MODULE and Wireframe, a Canadian public art agency that connected ArtForum with Paolozzi. Family, friends and other local volunteers also helped put the project together.
“This whole project has just been such a good example of a collaborative effort, like starting with [Special Events and Community Arts] giving us the grant money for this amazing project, down to all the people who have lent a hand. Like my parents yesterday went to get bolts for this,” Franczyk said. “It’s just been amazing that people are donating in-kind services and doing different things that they wouldn’t usually do, like everybody’s learning stuff, and I just think it’s a great example of how Naperville comes together to get things done, and I’m just really proud of it.”
Contributing photojournalist: Sam Kupres
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