La Maboule (1973), a monumental work, by Gérard Singer (1929-2007) is installed at the entry of Beaulieu Park in Riorges. Initially a painter, Gérard Singer ceaselessly experimented with new materials and especially those made available by plastics chemistry. This led him to making sculpture/objects and environments. He thus conceived monumental works whose organic forms bring primeval landscapes to mind. Inspired by a poem and made in 1973 for Assy plateau (Haute-Savoie), La Maboule is like an enormous blue rock. Designed at the scale of the landscape for a position close to a mountain—Gérard Singer climbed all his life—La Maboule also enabled him to experiment with epoxy resin, sculpted using large moulds.
Installed for several months in Beaulieu Park, La Maboule, in blue epoxy resin, is also a playful reference to the famous 'bleu de Bretagne' made in Riorges before World War 2.
The Institut d’art contemporain and the town of Riorges have launched a partnership that promises to result in long-term collaboration in the dissemination of the IAC collection in the Roanne area.
La Maboule was donated by Mrs Gérard Singer in 2010.
