The Moretti - Raymond Moretti

The Moretti - Raymond Moretti

Raymond Moretti (1931-2005), Le Moretti, reinforced plastic, fibreglass, 1995

Moretti's vivid imagination was able to express itself freely, transforming a 32-metre air vent into an unusual, colourful artwork. Using 672 fibreglass tubes from 2 to 30 centimetres in diameter, painted in 19 different colours, he covered the entire surface to better underline the volume while maintaining a verticality, offering an insolent and joyful dynamic.

In total, the tubes are 22 kilometres long and weigh 27.5 tons!

The artwork was created in 1990. The tubes were transported by barge from the manufacturing plant to the location of the chimney and required a total of 2,100 hours of assembly time. It was inaugurated in 1995.

Other artworks from the La Défense collection are also based on ventilation shafts:

A word about the artist

Raymond Moretti, born in Nice in 1931 of Italian parents, illustrated the front page of the "Magazine Littéraire" for more than twenty years and began painting at a very young age.
At the age of sixteen, he produced his first artwork Moses Breaking the Tables of the Law, exhibited at the University Museum of Jerusalem. His paintings evoke the Holocaust in Cris du monde, a series of twelve oils, exhibited at the Tel Aviv Museum.

With his friend Jean Cocteau, he paints gouaches and an oil. He meets Pablo Picasso with whom he develops a strong friendship. A man of passion, particularly for jazz and La Défense where he lives and creates.

In La Défense, Raymond Moretti also produced an artwork, Pendule, installed in the Quatre Temps shopping centre but which was removed when the place was restored. Since 1973, his sculpture Le Monstre, occupying 1,000 m² on five floors, has been installed in the basements of La Défense, but is not visible to the public.
It disappeared on 3 June 2005.

Click to enlarge

  • Le Moretti - Raymond Moretti
  • Le Moretti - Raymond Moretti
  • Le Moretti - Raymond Moretti