Jorge Macchi: The Submerged Cathedral at Musée Cantonal des Beaux-Arts

From September 12 to November 22, the Musée Cantonal des Beaux-Arts in Lausanne will be presenting a project by Argentinean artist Jorge Macchi. The installation he has designed and mounted for the Espace Projet starts with the Museum’s laminated glass wall and its seven individual elements. Fascinated since the age of twenty by Claude Debussy’s prelude La Cathédrale engloutie (The Submerged Cathedral), Macchi connects the number of large windows of the exhibition room with the same number of bells hanging in the Cathedral of Lausanne to create a sound piece whose composition is based on chance, that is, visitors’ movements around and through the installation.
Debussy’s La Cathédrale engloutie and hence Macchi’s installation refer to the legend of the town of Ys, which is supposed to be found somewhere along the Breton coast, although it sank beneath the waves long ago. From time to time, the bells of the Cathedral of Ys can be heard tolling in the deep waters of the sea. Jorge Macchi has set up a remembrance of Ys and the Debussy prelude by heightening the optical and echo effects that are peculiar to underwater sound.
Curated by Laurence Schmidlin, curator of contemporary art. The sound installation was developed by Manuel Eguía with the support of the Universidad Nacional de Quilmes, Argentina.