Foreword by the President

Foreword by the President

Is it obvious or is it an enigma? The least we can say about Robert Schad’s works is that they question us.

Apparently simple and uncluttered, they never cease to transform themselves, rich in their contradictions, always dual. Monumental, they are also aerial. Made of steel, they have the warm glow of mahogany. So contemporary, they nevertheless display the rust of a bygone era. And when they impose themselves on us, it is immediately for our gaze to cross them. So that today, in this exhibition on the scale of a whole Region, these formidable sculptures exist in themselves as much as they question the landscape or the monument which hosts them, in its space as in its historicity.

Because Bourgogne-Franche-Comté is, as we know, extraordinarily rich in heritage, and because we defend the idea that culture is an essential element of our lives and our identity, the Region could only welcome with enthusiasm this “Dix par dix” project, proposed by Robert Schad with the association Centre d’art mobile. Playing the role of a link between the territories, this exhibition draws up a composite portrait of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, from Besançon to Bibracte, from the figure of Buffon in Montbard to the Royal Saltworks of Arc-et-Senans, from the Priory of Marast to Tournus, via Lure, Ronchamp, Flavigny-sur-Ozerain, Arc-sous-Cicon and Alesia. Open and available to the general public, it is aimed as much at the inhabitants of our Region, between whom it creates a link, as at visitors and tourists, who will discover a living, attractive territory, rich in its many landscapes. A Bourgogne-Franche-Comté that is strong in its past but resolutely present in the present.

Marie-Guite Dufay
President of the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté Region