June 17, 2024 – October 15, 2024
La Puissance de l'amour
Five Monumental Sculptures by KAI Across Saint-Tropez
Saint-Tropez (France)
During the summer of 2024, KAI’s Imaginary Friend entered the public landscape of Saint-Tropez. Five monumental sculptures were installed across the port and historic center, turning familiar streets and squares into places of encounter, reflection and conversation.
Realized by Bel-Air Fine Art in partnership with the City of Saint-Tropez, La Puissance de l’Amour brought KAI’s recurring questions about love, choice, perseverance and human connection into a civic setting, where the works could be experienced freely by residents and visitors.
Imaginary Friend at Monumental Scale
At the center of KAI’s practice is IF, or Imaginary Friend, a deliberately open and immediately recognizable figure through which the artist explores emotional choices and shared human experiences. Enlarged to monumental scale, the character became a physical presence within the town, seated near cafés, overlooking the port and meeting pedestrians within the ordinary movement of public life.
The outdoor presentation featured Love vs Money, The Thinker, Love Holds Us Together, Endless Possibilities and The Struggle. Together, the five sculptures moved between personal dilemmas and collective experience, addressing affection, ambition, resilience, uncertainty and the bonds that hold people together.
Their polished metallic surfaces and readable silhouettes first attracted attention through form and scale. The situations staged by the figures then invited a slower response, allowing each viewer to bring a personal interpretation to the questions contained within the work.
A Sculpture Route Through Saint-Tropez
Rather than concentrating the exhibition within a single venue, Bel-Air Fine Art developed a route across the town. The sculptures were installed along Quais Suffren and Jaurès and at Places Blanqui, Grammont and de la Garonne, creating a sequence of encounters through the port and historic center.
Each placement established a different relationship between sculpture, architecture and public life. Surrounded by boats, restaurant terraces, historic façades and the daily circulation of the town, KAI’s figures became temporary inhabitants of Saint-Tropez rather than objects isolated within a conventional exhibition space.
The official opening took place on July 30 in the presence of KAI, representatives of the municipality and the Bel-Air Fine Art team. For the artist, the project represented an important public presentation in France. For the audience, it offered direct access to contemporary sculpture without the threshold of a museum or gallery.
La Puissance de l’Amour demonstrated how KAI’s visual language can retain its emotional intimacy even at an architectural scale. By positioning Imaginary Friend within shared civic space, the exhibition allowed its messages to be encountered unexpectedly, repeatedly and by viewers of different ages and backgrounds.
Related artists