November 12, 2015 – February 20, 2016
Hommage à Rodin
A Monumental Work for the Reopening of the Musée Rodin
Musée Rodin, Paris, France
Created for the reopening of the Musée Rodin in Paris, Patrick Roger’s monumental Hommage à Rodin was commissioned at the invitation of museum director Catherine Chevillot. Nearly four meters high, the work translated Roger’s direct approach to modeling into an exceptional dialogue with Rodin’s legacy and the physical act of sculpture.
A Commission for the Reopening
The Musée Rodin reopened in November 2015 after an extended programme of restoration. For the occasion, Catherine Chevillot invited Patrick Roger to produce a monumental sculpture, a commission that placed a living sculptor inside the house of the artist whose name the museum carries.
At close to four meters, the work operated at the scale of the building rather than the display case. Its presence asked visitors to read it against Rodin’s own handling of mass, surface and unfinished form.
Modeling as a Physical Act
Roger’s method begins with direct modeling, the material worked by hand before any translation into a permanent medium. That way of building form — through pressure, accumulation and removal — is what connected the commission to Rodin, for whom sculpture was equally a matter of touch.
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