Arc Majeur: The largest steel sculpture in the world now stands in Belgium

L’Arc Majeur (The Major Arc), Europe’s largest public artwork now stands in Belgium.

The sculpture has been installed on highway E411 between the provinces of Namur and Luxembourg (Belgium), milestone 99.As its name suggests, the artwork takes the form of a sweeping arc coming out from the ground on two sides of the highway.

“At the top of a hill, the Arc Majeur draws its majestic lines. The monumental steel sculpture, the work of the artist Bernar Venet, encloses the road on both sides. Crossed by travelers, its metal curve of 205.5 ° seems to carry the sky. She marries the landscape, as if its curves were prolonged under the ground. The Major Arc is both a work of art and a technical feat. An unprecedented human collaboration, synergy of the best expertise to shine the Walloon know-how.”

 

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After negotiations over three decades, Bernar Venet’s monumental sculpture, “Arc Majeur,” will finally make its appearance in October 2019, in Luxembourg, Belgium. The gigantic arc, with its two arms stretching towards the sky, disrupts the horizon of the busy highway. The time- and resource-consuming sculpture is more than a test on the limitation of Venet’s control over his project. It poses the artist’s personal intrusion to the public landscape that is shaped by “monuments” of power, politics, and history. – Image: Bernar Venet, Art Majeur. – #desarthe #BernarVenet #ArcMajeur #publicart #sitespecific #conceptualart #contemporaryart #Belgium #Luxembourg #installation #monument #MonumentalSculpture

A post shared by de Sarthe (@desarthegallery) on Jul 27, 2019 at 2:37am PDT

The artwork was imagined back in 1984 by Bernar Venet, who was asked by Jack Lang, former French Minister of Culture to build the gigantic arc.

The project is assumed to have cost 2.5 million euros.