Today I want to share with you a few, just a few, of the 150 photos I took last Sunday during a multi-hour walking tour of one of the best open-air art exhibitions anywhere.
Môtiers is a lovely old village tucked away in the Travers valley in the Jura mountains near the French border. The old train route to Paris goes through there, Pontarlier is the border town. Just in case you want to look it up on Google Maps, say... :)
The approach by train affords some stunning views. This sheer cliff of calcareous rock rising high above the wooded hills, for example - Les Creux du Van:
This red arched bridge across the Travers river in the village before Môtiers resembles one very near where I live - the one in Bern is a little bigger, mind.
One of the architectural highlights of Môtiers, the Hotel des Six Communes. Might have been a storehouse for grain at one time (I'd have to research that, which I will do, on a rainy day, when I'm less busy).
The town has just a couple of streets. Most buildings are old, two-storey terraces, low-ceilinged, with just the right amount of asymmetry to be attractive. Many of them are beautifully restored, probably not least because the art exhibition has brought in a number of wealthy new home owners. Opposite this building is a beautiful old inn, La Tanière:
On one of the hottest days this year, it was very pleasant to sit in the ancient porch.At the end of the main road,
this is the view looking back towards the village (above and below).
Not all of the place is quite so idyllic -- inspired by John Armleder, who declared a mundane chimney to be art (sans titre), I decided to find and photograph some landscape sculptures: 
I suppose one could even find this kind of thing beautiful. But this?
Not really, eh?
Farmer's art -- a shack full of rusting implements -- it's not only on Mull and elsewhere in Western Scotland that one finds this kind of thing...
... a strange kind of beauty ... 
... time, the great artist.******
But now, some "real" art (in brackets, the artists according to the brochure/guide one receives at the entrance in lieu of a ticket), by way of my very personal look at two pieces to get us started:
(Roman Signer, La même grandeur / la même forme Une autre couleur, frames Christoph Draeger's Wicker Man seen on the top of the hill on the horizon.)
An old "friend", so to speak, this whimsical sculpture stood on "my" crossroads all summer last year. It's a diving platform with a difference... Love the uselessness of it! (L/B, Diving platform) -- and that's why here's another view of it, with an orange/green/white caravan (Lori Hersberger, sans titre) standing equally uselessly at the edge of a copse:
A mirror in a field, a logo in Boeing lettering that says "Baghdad" high above the valley (Marco Poloni) ...
... a "village" made of farmers' silos (Bob Gramsma: Chez Wälchli, Rust, Gossweiler, Fahrni, Stucki et Muff, Ol#7110, 2007 -- at the entrance a comment announced that anyone can take one of these monsters home if they like -- they're quite spacious, actually.)In the nearby woodland, not far from a magical waterfall, mysterious objects float high above the ground:
(Erica Pedretti, Windhosen [Wind Socks]).
Four feathery, fairytale, scaley "needles" (Alexandre Joly, Escadron d'objets volants [Squadron of flying objects]) are actually -- let me be blunt -- kajaks or canoes covered in peacock feathers. Sadly, my photos don't to the real thing justice, at all!
(Victorine Müller, Le moment végétatif) -- a whisper of light among the trees.A little further on, Excalibur is still firmly held in the giant's rocky grasp near the shallow caves and La Sourde waterfall:
(Artist unknown, remnant of a previous installation.)
On the path leading up to the waterfall, suddenly a glint of gold, a nugget, engraved with "Parle-moi d'un village" [Tell me about a village], then another, and another, each one bears a different phrase, some of which are obliterated by rocks that fell on them in the past bad weather seasons. (Artist unknown, remnants of a previous installation.)
Don't even dream of running away -- these feet and socks are concrete casts (Jean-Claude Schweizer, Et rêver d'évasion).
No, the dark patch in the field is not the couple's shadow, but ...
... a hole in the ground that alludes to the fact that the neighbouring village of Travers used to be famous for its asphalt mines (Katja Schenker, Bleu du ciel [Sky blue]).
If you step down into the bottom, all you can see is an edge of green grass and the blue sky above you -- magical!
Katja Schenker's land-art installation really catches my breath.
Thank you for visiting! come again -- I'm hoping to find time soon for another look back at this lovely event (which will end with fireworks and the incineration of Ursi, Bernahrd, Basil, Brutus and Jwan Luginbühl's Finale, a wooden structure I did not photograph, on September 22, 2007 -- you still have time to go look at all these pieces yourself).
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