Top of the World
La Joute ("the joust") (1969) is a public sculptural installation by Quebec artist Jean-Paul Riopelle, a member of the Automatiste movement. It is currently located in Place Jean-Paul-Riopelle in the Quartier international de Montréal. The ensemble of bronze sculptures contains a central fountain surrounded by a number of freestanding abstract animal and human figures inside and outside the fountain basin. The fountain operates on a kinetic sequence that takes about 32 minutes to complete. It begins a few minutes before the half-hour, every hour from 7 to 11 p.m. during the summer. The sequence starts when the fountain jet expands to form a dome over the sculptures. Then at the back end of the park the grates on the ground start to mist. The 12 grates each mist, one after the other in sequence, taking about 90 seconds to sequence from one to another until they reach the fountain. After about 18 minutes, machines inside the fountain start to produce a particularly dense cloud. The fountain jet then turns into a dribble. On the hour, nozzles in a ring surrounding the central sculpture within the basin shoot up jets of natural gas through the water; these are lit by flame sources installed in the daises of some of the sculptures, producing a dramatic ring of flame. The flame lasts for about seven minutes. The fountain itself stops. The misting stops, and then the fire is "doused" by the fountain which has restarted. The mist sequence, without the fire in the fountain, occurs every hour throughout the day.
