Page 146 - Neutrons for Sciences and Society

Neutrons for Science
“the mood of the work by Ipoustéguy is especially appropriate”,
adding:
“Ipoustéguy is considered to be the most important French sculptor of our epoch.”
Faced with such a chorus of praise the steering committee gave its approval. The set of sculptures from Ipoustéguy was completed in May 1972 and installed the following month. Its cost was
DM 200,000 (about €600,000 in 2018); the work of Loth was about DM 18,000. The total was much less than 1% of the price of a construction costing 30 million DM. The purchase of a work by Schlemmer, an artist from the Bauhaus in the early 20th century was considered, but never finalised.
The whole sculpture has the various components distributed along a concrete slab 20 m in length (see Fig. 5.16). This was installed by the artist in 1972 beside the path leading to the entrance of the main building. Shortly afterwards representatives of the municipality visited to celebrate the acquisition of a new major work of art in Grenoble. At that time the site was open and everyone could see the Ipoustéguy work. Sadly this is no longer the case. The presence of a reactor requires very strict control of entry to the site as part of security measures necessitated by the Vigipirate counter terrorism strategy.
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