Designers from JAD...

Designers from JAD* in dialogue with the Albers-Honegger Collection

* Jardin des métiers d'Art et du Design (The Garden of Art and Design Professions), Sèvres

Artists : Marta Bakowski, Cédric Breisacher, Luce Couillet, Marie Levoyet, Baptiste Meyniel

As well as a selection of works from the Albers-Honegger Collection: Corinne Cobson, Dadamaino, Piero Dorazio, Dan Flavin, Frank O. Gehry, Christoph Haerle, Gottfried Honegger, Donald Judd, Imi Knoebel, Sol LeWitt, Man Ray, François Morellet, Aurelie Nemours, Richard Serra, Alf Schuler, Claude Viallat, Sanford Wurmfeld

For this year which marks the 20th anniversary of the Donation Albers-Honegger building, eac. is putting design in the spotlight with this second exhibition. For this new cycle re-reading its permanent collection, resident designers, artisans and visual artists at JAD, the Jardin des métiers d'Art et du Design in Sèvres, have been invited to explore the Albers-Honegger Collection and select works with which they feel a ‘resonance’.

Housed in what was the Sèvres ceramics school, JAD is a place for creation and encounters and it promotes the cross-fertilisation of artistic practices and transmission of know-how between art craftspeople and designers.

True to the universal spirit of Concrete Art, Sybil Albers and Gottfried Honegger did not restrict their collection to examples of purely geometric works. They broadened its scope by embracing how twentieth century art could branch out in the most striking, and sometimes surprising, ways - which has made their collection a work in its own right. They also assembled an exceptional collection of design pieces - in particular chairs (Alvar Aalto’s Paimio armchair, Marcel Breuer’s Wassily armchair, Frank O. Gehry’s Wiggle Side Chair, Verner Panton’s Panton chair, etc.) - which bear striking witness to the democratic concept of art championed by the founders of this movement, and to its collective and social implications.

The works they selected from the Albers-Honegger Collection, enriched by their own work, establish a dialogue that transcends the techniques and mediums used and the barriers of time and space. Invited to contribute to the exhibition, these artists may echo or create contrasts with their own practice.

Luce Couillet revisits the practice of weaving by composing sculptures, objects and graphic ensembles. The uniqueness of her work lies in her creation of weft threads using original shapes and materials which she designs and then cuts, without any loss of the orthogonality integral to these hybrid objects.

Marta Bakowski specialises in working with colour and materials in a hybrid approach to design where industrial, artistic and craft projects are combined. Her works are influenced by popular and folk arts.

Cédric Breisacher is a designer and sculptor, who inspired by the natural environment,  strives to use a local, circular production system. By using hand tools, he has gone back to the idea that time and hard work are a necessary part of the process of making things.

A heliogravure and intaglio printer, Marie Levoyet works daily with photographers, visual artists and designers from the contemporary art scene. In 2018, she set up her own studio becoming one of the few artists who specialise in full-colour heliogravure printing. Marie Levoyet is exhibiting works created jointly with Baptiste Meyniel for the exhibition.

Baptiste Meyniel 's practice is rooted in an understanding of what matter can draw as well as an understanding of drawing as a graphic act that opens up the object and its materialisation. For him there is no choice but to create this way as he works with his hands in a close relationship with gesture and movement which leads to shapes emerging and which allows potential uses to become apparent.