The prestigious wine estate Château Mouton Rothschild has had an original tradition since 1945: each vintage of the estate is adorned with an original work by a renowned artist. And the list of these painters and designers is impressive: the collection of wine labels includes illustrations by Dalí, César, Chagall, Picasso, Warhol, Niki de Saint Phalle or more recently Jeff Koons.
For the 2019 Château Mouton Rothschild bottle, the winemaker called on Danish and Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson. His work entitled Solar Iris of Mouton celeeurosbre "the alliance of sun and wine", explains the winemaker.
Solar Iris of Mouton represents a series of ellipses forming a ring that traces the path of the sun in relation to the earth, at the very location of Château Mouton Rothschild in Pauillac, Gironde. The lowest arc of the circle represents the shortest day of the year and the highest circle, the longest day.
In the upper part of the work, which represents the day, the figures in the shape of 8, called analemma, retrace the positions of the sun recorded daily for a year at the same time from the Girondin domain. They thus describe the movements of the Earth around the Sun and along its own axis, which are the origin of the variations in the position of the Sun.
The map of all the sunrises and sunsets in Pauillac
For Olafur Eliasson, Solar Iris of Mouton is "the cartography of all the sunrises and sunsets during a year at Château Mouton Rothschild". "Each hour of the day and night that participates in the cycle of the vine is represented, it is in a way the solar signature of the vineyard, it tells us about its growth conditions and the intimate relationship between the wine and its place of origin. To taste a wine is to come into contact with a place, a soil, a climate, seasons, a light. The wine that can be seen through the oculus in the center of the label carries within it the golden star, the earth and the sky: it is both the expression of a well-localized terroir and bears the imprint of the cosmos
Born in 1967 in Danemack, Olafur Eliasson now works in Berlin, Germany, where he founded Studio Ólafur Elíasson, which brings together architects, craftsmen, technicians, art historians and archivists. The studio produces artworks of different disciplines, exhibitions and architectural projects.
Welcomed in the largest museums in the world, the artist represented Denmark at the Venice Biennale in 2003. In 2016, he was invited to the Château de Versailles where he created a series of interventions using the play of mirrors, light, fog and water.
"Fascinated by Olafur Eliasson's work for many years, this exciting exhibition at Versailles in 2016 was decisive, explains Julien de Beaumarchais de Rothschild, co-owner of Château Mouton Rothschild and in charge of the label design. And I said to myself: 'One day, if he wants to, Olafur Eliasson will be one of the artists of Château Mouton Rothschild'. His art goes to the heart of the matter. For Mouton Rothschild, he also captured the essentials: time, the return of the seasons and the sun at the center of all things, but this time treated as a diagram."
