Client: Savannah College of Art and Design

Overview

French hillside transformed into gallery en plein air. For centuries, the medieval village of Lacoste in the Provence region of southeastern France has been an inspirational haven for artists. Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh, and Pablo Picasso all sought out its rolling hills and lavender fields.

As the European location of the premier global destination for art and design education, SCAD Lacoste is now celebrating twenty years of creativity and innovation with the unveiling of la Promenade de Sculptures. The permanent installation of ten large-scale works embodies the ingenuity of ten student, alumni, and faculty artists — diverse representatives of SCAD’s talented network.

Curated by President Paula Wallace and Chief Operating Officer Glenn Wallace, and organized by SCAD Museum of Art associate curator Ben Tollefson, the works celebrate the magic of the Luberon Valley. The artists were chosen from an array of artistic backgrounds. They were inspired by personal experiences in Lacoste as SCAD students or faculty, or through alumni enrichment programs like SCAD’s prestigious Alumni Atelier. SCAD’s top-ranked programs in industrial design, graphic design, painting, fibers, fashion, and animation are all represented.

Goals

Home SCAD’s French campus since 2002, the village of Lacoste rises from the Petit Luberon Valley in an ever-changing landscape dotted with bories, rough-hewn stone shelters created by craftspeople over centuries. Like bories, SCAD Lacoste is a place of refuge, a haven for artists and scholars that reflects the ingenuity, thoroughness, and care of its makers and inhabitants.

The goal was to create a collection of ten works to highlight this theme and continue to beautify this stunning medieval village. SCAD repurposed land that had been an olive orchard in centuries past, creating a walkable path with a ramp from the road to the end of the exhibition and installing foundations for all of the sculptures. SCAD also reconstructed fallen retaining walls and installed a handrail and lighting for each work of art.

The ten individual works represent something greater when experienced together in physical space. A grand unveiling on October 16, 2022, showed all the works in their permanent place. SCAD President Paula Wallace called the new Promenade de Sculptures as “a love letter to Provence writ large in the Luberon Valley,” and invited the public to view this magnificent tribute to art, design, and Provence.

Process

A call for proposals was opened exclusively to SCAD alumni, faculty, students and staff, to design, create, and install large-scale projects, not exceeding 25 square feet in surface area, or 5,000 lbs weight. Applicants were asked to consider ideas of creative shelter, haven, and refuge, themes which are celebrated at SCAD campuses around the world.

Proposals were reviewed by a jury of specialists convened by SCAD. Jurors looked for 10 projects that demonstrate a compelling, innovative response to the theme outlined, as well as an articulated ability to execute the project. The artists in question are:

Justin Archer, SCAD sculpture professor
Ashley Benton (B.F.A., painting, 1990)
Milan Bhullar (M.F.A., furniture design)
Bradley L. Bowers (M.A., furniture design, 2012; B.F.A., industrial design, 2010)
Carla Contreras (M.F.A. painting, 2020)
Kendall Glover (B.F.A., fibers, 2009)
Andrew Herzog (M.A., graphic design, 2013; B.F.A., graphic design, 2012)
Melissa Richardson (B.F.A., fashion)
Wendy White (B.F.A., fibers, 1993)
Justin Zielke (M.F.A., animation, 2017)