Five years ago, nearly 900,000 people crowded the streets of the Pink City during the All Saints weekend to admire the Minotaur, whose release marked the opening of the Machine Hall. Awaited by fans of the mechanical bestiary imagined by François Delarozière, this XXL event will take place again this year, at the same time as in 2018. Until then, fans of these giant mechanisms can learn a little more about the how they are designed.
“In the boxes”, the new exhibition in the exhibition space which adjoins the Piste des Géants, allows us to see how all the stages of these inventions pass from the status of sketches to reality. “We wanted to reopen the Halle after the closing period with a beautiful project dedicated to drawing, because everything starts with drawing. A hundred sketches are presented in large format, but also originals. There are also five painting machines, such as the catapult which projects paint and will make it possible to have an original work within six months, ”explains François Delarozière, the artistic director of the Halle.
This Saturday evening, the first day of the holidays, a night will allow visitors to discover all these works by torchlight, the public being able to manipulate the unusual machines with well-oiled mechanics. And even to have a portrait taken by three robots thanks to an installation imagined by the Belgian artist Patrick Tresset.