The monumental hall of Bordeaux’s Musée d’Art Contemporain, a plain stone building constructed in 1824 as a warehouse for spices and coffee, ismore than 80 feet high and measures more than 21,500 square feet in area. Jannis Kounellis’ show, held in this spectacular space, demonstrated both the historical origins of his work and what his current art, at its highest level, can achieve.

Beyond any superficial theatricality or rhetoric, Kounellis’ use of the architectural space in this installation was at once organically integrated and structurally camouflaged. Raw materials such as stone, wood,