Vertigo

Exhibition at Villa Carmignac, Porquerolles, 26 April - 2 November 2025

From the Latin vertere - to turn or transform - Vertigo here refers to the blurred perception of a moving visual field, whether that of nature or a painting. Echoing the dizzying experience of the Mediterranean sun, the mistral wind, the waves and sea spray, as well as the immensity of the sky and the depths of the sea around the island of Porquerolles, this exhibition catalogue explores in a unique way the links between the perception of natural phenomena and abstraction since the 1950s.

Bringing together some fifty works on loan from museums, institutions and private collections, as well as from the Carmignac collection and productions created specifically for the exhibition, this book brings together artists who have freed themselves from figuration, appearances and images in order to better question our relationship with the sensory world: the vibration of colour in the works of Yves Klein, James Turrell and Jesús Rafael Soto, cosmic journeys with Olafur Eliasson, Anna-Eva Bergman and Hans Hartung, dissolution in the murky environments of Helen Frankenthaler, Gerhard Richter, Frank Bowling and Flora Moscovici, optical games by Ann Veronica Janssens and Carlos Cruz-Diez, and celestial infinities by Otto Piene and Caroline Corbasson.