Tour d’Or Blanc Amboise

Tour d’Or Blanc: Jean-Michel Othoniel

On the weekend of 16-17 October 2021 the modest suburb of Bout-des-Ponts, the Cinderella of Amboise, made it to the ball. (Why ‘des’, not ‘de’? The mighty Loire is so wide in Amboise, it has two bridges. The suburb is so named because it grew at the end of them).

The Mairie is to be congratulated on the way it has celebrated this out of the spotlight part of town. It pulled out all its creative and financial stops to assure the north bank gets its share of the limelight.

It was a joy to see so many happy locals, to see ‘Le Royal’ Brasserie full and to see inside the ancient Notre-Dame-du-Bout-des-Ponts.

Notre Dame du Bout des Ponts.

As for the fires from the town all along the bridge to Bout de Ponts, wonderful.

Folk on the south side of the river are proud of Max Ernst’s Fountain and Alexander Calder’s Crinkly. Now Bout des Ponts can be proud of its very own international artist, Jean-Michel Othoniel and his Tour d’Or Blanc (The White Gold Tower).

Tour d’Or Blanc

Barcelona, Brussels, Geneva, Miami, Montreal, New Orleans, New York, Seoul, Shanghai, Tokyo, Versailles, Venice, Washington and Finland all have Jean-Michel Othoniel’s creations. Now Bout des Ponts has one too.

A book could be written about how it very nearly didn’t happen. The Project was mooted under one mayor but did not come into being for more than twelve years later under the present mayor.

Ideas are wonderful but where was the money to come from? Despite years of everyone digging deep into pockets, there was still a shortfall until, so the story goes, the arrival of President Macron in 2019 for the 500th anniversary of the death of Leonardo da Vinci. Following a conversation during a jolly held in the beautiful gardens of Chateau Clos Lucé the State came up trumps. How could it not after being served superb food and wine?

One question remained. Would the artist have time to finish his Tower? In 2007, when he accepted the Commission, Jean-Michel Othoniel was an up and coming young artist. By 2019 when Amboise finally had the finances to fund the Project, he was a jet setting, much sought after, still young, world famous artist.

In 2010, he was in India working on a solo exhibition for the Georges Pompidou Centre in Paris. It was so successful it went on tour to Seoul, Tokyo and New York. In 2013, Tokyo commissioned a monumental heart of gilded bronze beads to be permanently installed in the Japanese Mohri Garden. 2014 brought a commission from none other than the Palace of Versailles. 2016 saw the completion of an eight year project The Treasure of Angoulême Cathedral. It’s astonishing he didn’t forget Amboise but he didn’t. The Commission inspired him.

His Tour d’Or Blanc, a belated public acknowledgement of local winegrowers, grew from the metaphorical acorn they planted way back in 2007. They had wanted a symbol to pay tribute to the viticulture of Amboise for many years.

Works of art, like oaks, take a long time to come to fruition especially if the world closes its financial doors during a two year pandemic. Patience is not its own reward. The Tour d’Or Blanc is the wine growers reward. To celebrate its inauguration, they launched a new wine, Clos des Châtelliers cuvée L'Or Blanc. Our reward was a glass of the vin d’honneur (wine in honour of a special guest).

When the artist cut the ribbon he thanked Les Vign’Amboisiennes for their trust in choosing him to carry out the project. When members approached him they didn’t know what they wanted but knew what they didn’t. They didn’t want clichéd vines, grapes or wine bottles. They wanted something a bit different, less run of the mill, more of a talking point. Like Calder’s Crinkly and Ernst’s Fountain they certainly got that.

The original location was outside the Church but the artist suggested his Tower be erected on the roundabout. He was right. Love or loathe contemporary art this eye catching fifteen metre high beacon in this impossible to ignore location has put Bout des Ponts firmly on the map or to be fair, re-put. Until the 1950s visitors to Amboise came not to see the chateaux but to do big business there.

Until post war 1950s, when people once more began to have enough disposable income to travel, visitors to Amboise were not tourists they were industrialists. The town’s wealth came from the factories of Mabille and Facel-Vega on the north side.

Was the artist disheartened how long his Tower took to get here? Not a bit of it. He implied 2021 is precisely the right time. Talking about the Pandemic he said : ‘ There are very few things being done in France, projects of this ambition. Today, we have to bring back the wonderful, the hope, the enchantment’

Is that why he was seen popping into the Church? For a moment of reflection? Content he finally gave the wine growers (a back breaking, time consuming calling if ever there was one) what they hoped for but could not imagine? They produce works of art he can taste, Jean-Michel Othoniel produced a future they can see.

Post by Pamela, photography by Mark.