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Galerie Perrotin Hong Kong invited French artist Jean-Michel Othoniel to create site- specific sculptures. Othoniel is well known for his works of colourful giant glass “necklaces”— the Pavilion of the Nightwalkers at the entrance of Palaise Royal metro station in Paris, Kin no Kokoro in the Morhi Garden to celebrate Mori Art Museum’s 10th anniversary in Tokyo. For each creation, he works on his initial designs in delicate water colours, then he collaborates with glass artisans in Venice and Switzerland with whom he’s been working for over a decade to create the actual sculptures. Each glass ball is blown, coloured and formed into different shapes and shades individually, is then carefully arranged and “threaded” though a giant aluminum structure, so that all of the glass balls would fit seamlessly, like a giant beaded necklace that has come to live, dancing in the wind or draping in the air.
“It’s the metamorphoses of glass that makes these sculptures so amazing. Glass can be in liquid form, but it cools down so quickly hence the making process needs to be very quick,” Othoniel comments.
The Curator, Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain Hélène Kelmachter speaks with admiration about Othoniel, and has witnessed how his career has flourished since 1991, when Othoniel was 27, having recently graduated from art school, he received sponsorship from the Cartier Foundation of Contemporary Art which enabled him to show his work in the Hong Kong Art Museum and was granted a two-month residency in Hong Kong. It was his first taste of Asia and his introduction to the philosophy of Feng Shui.
When Emmanuel Perrotin, founder of Galerie Perrotin invited him to create site-specific sculptures for his gallery in Hong Kong, for him it was like coming full circle. Naturally, Othoniel decided to incorporate Feng Shui elements into the Monumental Sculptures. Some of the beads are in silver mirrored glass which symbolises water, and in degradation they gradually turn into warm and transparent pink and yellow, which represents warmth or fire. The structures glisten in the gallery room which is located in front of futuristic glass sky scrapers and the iconic Hong Kong harbour front. The rotation of the beads brings out the intrinsic beauty and variability of the knots which he invented and fully reflects his design philosophy— constantly seeks to relate his works with regard to the surrounding.
After working in a cosmopolitan concrete jungle, Othoniel is now back to Paris and work on his next monumental project. In September 2014, he will inaugurate a group of three majestic fountain sculptures in the gardens of the Palace of Versailles called The Beautiful Dances. It will be the first permanent work commissioned from a contemporary artist since Louis XVI.
by Lucienne Leung-Davies
Jean-Michel Othoniel installation at the Palace of Versailles gardens opens in September