JR’s new monumental rock installation ‘la nascita’ emerges in front of milan central station

JR presents monumental rock installation ‘la nascita’

French artist JR unveils his new monumental rocky public installation ‘La Nascita’ just outside Milan Central Station. It consists of a series of printed images of rock formations plastered onto aluminum slats and is on view from April 9th until May 1st, 2024. La Nascita is JR’s first sculptural anamorphosis and is considered a deviation from his usual medium of paper and glue. It also joins Moncler’s public exhibition for Milan Design Week 2024 located inside the station. In a conversation with designboom during the preview of his rock installation, JR shares that the idea of anamorphosis, which means a distorted image and may induce optical illusions, has been a big part of his work.

‘From a certain point of view, you can see that the artworks connect with the building (Milan Central Station). But the truth is, you can also walk through the square here and find different angles because there are many different layers. So, you can actually cross between the mountains and see their different visuals. It’s the first time that I play with different shapes like this. It recalls a bit what I did in the Louvre, but there I used the small pyramids. Here, I had to recreate the different layers and pieces with scaffolding to take over the whole square and create a see-through train station,’ JR tells designboom during La Nascita’s preview.

image © designboom

Constructing la nascita in front of milan central station

While JR’s La Nascita at Milan Central Station may be dubbed a monumental rock installation, it is divided into individual scaffoldings, each with varying rock formations that piece the ensemble together. JR tells designboom during the preview that he used local scaffolding from Milan to create his new installation. ‘I’ve only used metal that we’ve printed on, so we can reuse it for different works. It’s like layers of metal that you can see and touch, and the pasting on the floor is a more resistant material that is not plastic. It’s made of aluminum that can hold up when people walk on it. We used most of the materials to create vertical installations,’ JR shares with designboom.

image © designboom

The aluminum slats, which are 32 centimeters in width, are painted white, and the rock images are printed in black using sublimation. A coat of varnish was added later on too. In La Nascita, there are two parts that visitors can roam around: the aluminum panels hung on scaffolding near the station’s facade and the smaller scaffolding structures on the ground of Piazza Duca d’Aosta. This creates the spatial anamorphosis, and the printing technique used on aluminum means that the installation can withstand different weather conditions and be turned into a permanent piece. The materials in the public artwork, from the large scaffolding to the small clamps holding the panels, are expected to be reused for future projects, and those that can’t be reused are to be melted down and recycled.

image © designboom

referencing origins of milan central station

JR’s La Nascita was brought up after the Milan Central Station’s administration invited the French artist to transform the station’s facade and Piazza Duca d’Aosta square into a rocky landscape with a monumental installation. The artwork retells the history of the train station, with King Victor Emmanuel III laying a symbolic foundation stone for the new central train station following the opening of the Simplon Tunnel in 1906. During the process, lots of rocks were excavated from the Alps to create the tunnel. It is this that fueled JR to pay homage to the Milan Central Station’s history by propping up mineral and rock formations that draw from classical Roman, eclectic, rationalist, art nouveau, and art deco architecture.

Walking through rocks in JR’s la nascita

At the center of La Nascita, the main printed image, just below the towering installation, a cavernous opening splits the rocky formations, inviting the visitors to walk on the path toward the unknown. This becomes the invisible hand of JR, an offer that can allow them to see and walk through one of the origins that brought Milan Central Station to life. JR explains to designboom that when visitors walk around the historic building of Milan Central Station, they may wonder why it was built in the first place.

‘And the reason was that when the people wanted to connect Switzerland and Italy through the Simplon Tunnel, they excavated under the Alps to create a wide room for the trains and for the goods to go through. And so this was why the new central station was created. Before this, I walked around the Eiffel Tower and found out that there were buildings built under and out of the stone. I revealed these similar shapes from below here (in La Nascita). In this installation, you almost see through the mountains as you walk,’ he says.