Paris, France — She holds an olive branch in one hand and a glowing flame in the other. The monumental official Olympic sculpture for the Paris Olympic Games was created by the American artist Alison Saar who hails from Los Angeles. Entitled Salon, the impressive art work sits in the beautiful public gardens of the Champs-Elysées and is a work of art that will become a permanent part of the Parisian public art landscape. Alison Saar was selected by the International Olympic Committee and the city of Paris to create the work which was conceived as an invitation to the public to meet, dialogue and share with other people illustrating her Olympic ideal of a peaceful and inclusive society.

« I am very honored to have been chosen to create the Olympic sculpture. I hope that this work of art, a gift to all Parisians, will become a unifying place and a symbol of friendship and interconnection between cultures and beyond borders, » said Alison Saar during the official inauguration of the statue last June 23rd and which was attended by the president of the International Olympic Committee Thomas Bach.

The sculpture is a gift from the International Olympic Committee to the host city of the Olympic Games within the context of its Olympic Arts Visions program which invites renowned artists to create an original work of art drawing inspiration from sports and Olympic values to be installed in a public spot in the host city of the games. This program, unique within the Olympic movement, contributes to building ties between the host cities through the international art community by symbolically passing the torch from one Olympic games to another, from Tokyo to Paris and from Paris to Los Angeles. For the Tokyo games, French artist Xavier Veilhan created the work entitled The Audience.

Alison Saar’s mission was to create a sculpture destined to link the City of Light with the City of Angels. She called her work Salon in reference to a private salon or living room but also to the salons that the American writer and art collector Gertrude Stein held in Paris bringing together artists, writers, musicians and intellectuals to share their ideas and their work. The feminine figure is surrounded by six seats further inviting people to come in, sit down and talk, and to share. The six seats represent a different region of the world and types of seats, for example the West African seat is the one used for traditional discussions beneath the baobab tree while the classic Thonet chair evokes Europe. The work marks the first time one of her sculptures has been exhibited outside of the United States and her first international commission. She has been creating art works for over four decades and her works have been exhibited in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). She created the monumental sculpture of Harriet Tubman, the American abolitionist who worked to free enslaved people, that stands in Harlem.

Alison Saar traveled to France where the work was cast in the Fonderie Fusions foundry in the small village of Charbonnières-les-Vieilles in the Puy-de-Dôme region in central France. Made of bronze and lava from the volcanic igneous rock extracted in central France the sculpture is part of an environmentally friendly approach and to honor the talents of local craft people. « I wanted to call upon French crafts people, not only to reduce our costs and the carbon imprint, but also to support the French craft people and suppliers whose savoir-faire is recognized throughout the world, » said Alison Saar. ©Trish Valicenti for The Gourmet Gazette