Gagosian Gallery Paris presents an exhibition of limited edition furniture by Jean Nouvel, presented in collaboration with Galerie Patrick Seguin. On view through MAY 21, 2011.
Like many of his modernist predecessors who worked across related disciplines, Nouvel describes himself as an architect who also makes design. His non-architectural products derive from his architectural commissions or from alternative visions that correspond to his building design but which are linked to specific use. Regardless of the scale of the object or the architecture, Nouvel employs the same rigorous approach, imbuing the objects and accoutrements of everyday life with a lyricism that is striking and emotive yet austere and utilitarian.
La Table au Km (2008-2011) is a narrow (75cm) wooden table, made to measure, with a minimum length of 4m. (The example exhibited here measures 6m 35, according to the dimensions of the gallery). The extraordinary proportions of the table are determined by a constructive principle whereby its span is miraculously supported within the thickness of the material itself, which is a lamination of oak and hornbeam. Thus, in theory, the length of the table is limitless. The table is produced in Italy by Unifor.
Boîte à outils (1987-2011) is a storage system based on the standard toolbox that can be found in every household. Nouvel has studied and reinterpreted this utilitarian container, streamlining it while imbuing it with additional functions and attributes. The toolbox is produced in France by Decayeux.
Jean Nouvel was born in Fumel in1945 and studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris. A key protagonist of intellectual debate in France regarding architecture, he was a founding member of Mars 1976 and Syndicat de l’Architecture. Nouvel’s buildings include Musée du Quai Branly and Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain in Paris; the Congress Center in Luzern, Switzerland; the Agbar tower in Barcelona; and the Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis. The Louvre Abu Dhabi and the Paris Philharmonia at La Villette are among the projects currently in planning. Nouvel’s distinctions include the Aga Khan Award for Architecture for the Institut du Monde Arabe (1989), the Wolf Prize in Arts (2005) and the Pritzker Prize (2008). Exhibitions of his work, including the retrospective at the Centre Pompidou (2001), have been held all over the world, from New York to Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo.
In 1995 Nouvel created the Jean Nouvel Design Agency (JND), to develop design and interior architecture projects in parallel with the architectural practice Ateliers Jean Nouvel. Several series of furniture and industrial objects have been developed and commercialized from the Less collection (Unifor), coffee service (Alessi), lighting (Troll), partitioning systems (Methis), seating (Roset), tables and lamps (Pallucco).
La Table au Km and Boîte à outils are the first limited editions by JNDA.
www.gagosian.com
