"The Wood That Was" from John A. Harris at the galerie Patricia Dorfmann from January 24th to February 23rd, 2008

The modernity of the wooden furniture designed and crafted by John A. Harris lies found not so much in its style or the techniques used to make it, but in its mode of production.

For the pieces of furniture made by Harris belong to that multifarious cohort of objects now coming to the fore on the art scene. These are objects that subvert the established categories, which cannot be placed in the category of functionalist design or decorative arts, let alone in that of the visual arts, bogged down as these are in obscure discourse. Visually remarkable and immaculately crafted, the merit of these objects is that they tell us about their maker. They are the fruit of a great number of lived experiences, and their perfection is the result of first-hand knowledge, passion and a real engagement with the material. Today, after years of deprecation, skill and technique are making a comeback. No longer synonymous with stifling crafts traditions, they are now part of a free and empirical learning process.

The “haute couture” furniture made by John A. Harris shows that excellence is no longer the exclusive preserve of the specialist cabinetmakers, but can also be conquered by men and women who, following the imperatives of their creative process, are reinventing traditional techniques and thus, without necessarily thinking in such terms, are sculpting the contours of the future.

Harris works to his own rhythm, allowing long periods of latency when, he tries “to let the wood express itself while I am restoring and taking care of it. I wait for each piece to tell me what it wants to become.” These periods of waiting, discovery and listening thus constitute a kind of apprenticeship.


The work is at once technical and ethical, resulting from the long quest for an asceticism that is elegant, subtle and richly expressive. And while this asceticism is obtained in the solitude of his studio, in the midst of his singular struggles with the material, it is no less cultivated for all that, meaning that it comes out of both the American tradition of a George Nakashima or a Ralph Rapson, and the European one of designers like Janette Laverrière and Gustave Gautier. The latter’s influence can be seen in the extreme delicacy of the finishes and articulations, and in the bold play on veneers. Such are the no doubt fortuitous formal evocations in the work of this artist who offers a talent combination of skill, originality and sensitivity.
extract from Patrick Favardin - Paris, November 2007

"The Wood That Was" from John A. Harris
24 January – 23 February 2008

GALERIE PATRICIA DORFMANN
www.patriciadorfmann.com
61, rue de la Verrerie
75004 Paris

Tuesday-Saturday 2pm-7pm, and upon
Tel : 01 42 77 55 41
Fax : 01 42 77 72 74
Mail : galerie@patriciadorfmann.com

1977–2007 Design, A Generation Design auction / sale on December 18th, 2007 at Artcurial

European leading Design sale house, the Artcurial Design dpt.| Briest - Le Fur - Poulain - F. Tajan, will organize in the evening of Tuesday December 18th, a new theme auction: "1977–2007 Design, A Generation".

Ron Arad Siège « Blo Void 3 », 2006
Estimation : 80 000-100 000 €

After the success of the 2005 "Light is more", the 2006 "Black, le noir dans le paysage domestique" and "Pierre Jeanneret, Chandigarh Project" or the 2007 "Al Dente ! Design, art et art de vivre en Italie", "1977–2007 Design, A Generation" looks like a, exceptional sale.

The sale provides the opportunity to sweep the last thirty years of creation and design to pay tribute to the new generation of designers.
We grew up with these artist's creations which in many ways participated in scripting our daily lives and shape our imagination. Fabien Naudan, design specialist for the Department is proud to announce the auction of the most prestigious names in the past three decades of formal investigation, among other signed items from Ron Arad, Marc Newson, Front Design, Marcel Wanders , Cedric Ragot, Matali Crasset, Arik Levy, Alexandre de Betak, or Ora Ito, amongst others.
Pivotal period in the creation, the sale allows you to explore the foundations and values of this endlessly questioning discipline. Under the influence of fathers of the new design like Philippe Starck, Ingo Maurer, Ron Arad, furniture codes of reading have tremendously evolved.
What about today "Art-Design" interaction ? What divides or boundaries now exists? Did the "functional", gave its status up to the "spectacular"? Is it still possible to be creative or free?
So many questions created by this sale in the form of a retrospective of contemporary design.
At a time where big names in the discipline became stars, this auction offers the panorama of a generation, and its outcome will determine the market trends for a well alive discipline.

Arik Levy Ensemble Rock wood
Estimation : 23 000-25 000 €

Arik Levy - Born in 1963 in Tel Aviv, Arik Levy got his degree in industrial design in 1991 at Art Center Europe (Switzerland). After a stay in Japan, he moved to Paris, where he founded with the designer Pippo Lionni, the firm "L-Design." The firm develops both graphic projects, industrial design and interior design. In 2001, with the Swiss manufacturer Vitra, he designed the furniture and lighting of the Parisian headquarters of Cartier. He is now working for companies like Vitra, Ligne Roset, Cinna, Baccarat, Sector Sport Watches, Tai Ping, Gaia & Gino, Belux, Swedese…

Matali Crasset Lampe de table Splight, 2005
Estimation : 800-1 200 €

Matali Crasset - Born July 28, 1965 in Chalons-en-Champagne, Matali Crasset is an industrial designer by training.
She develops new typologies around principles such as modularity, ownership, flexibility, the network. Her work, which has emerged from the 90's and the refusal of the pure form, is conceived as a search in motion, made of assumptions rather than principles.
She works within eclectic universes, from craftsmanship to electronic music, from textile industry to trade fair. Her accomplishments have brought her on land she didn't suspected, from scenography to furniture design, graphic design to interior design.

1977–2007 Design, A Generation
Preliminary Exhibitionfrom December 14 to 16th, from 11am to 07pm - December 17th, from 11am to 09pm
SaleDecember 18th, 2007

ARTCURIAL - Hôtel Dassault
www.artcurial.com
7 rond-point des Champs-Élysées
75008 Paris

Expert : Fabien Naudan Tel. +33 1 42 99 20 19
Contact : Alexandra Cozon Tel. +33 1 42 99 20 48

WE-ARE-FAMILIA exhibition from December 3rd to January 6th at colette

WE-ARE-FAMILIA is an independent creative study on the concept of family, founded by New York creative directors/designers Jennifer Garcia and Christian Calabro. 50 artists, designers and musicians have come together to explore the powerful, complex ties which consciously and unconsciously touch all that we experience as humans. Presented in 25 one-of-a kind keepsake boxes made from recycled furniture and found materials, WE-ARE-FAMILIA showcases original “mementos” contributed by its family of artists.

WE-ARE-FAMILIA
exposition du 3 Décembre au 6 Janvier

colette
http://www.colette.fr/
213 rue Saint-Honoré
75001 Paris

Tel: +33 1 55 35 33 90
Fax: +33 1 55 35 33 99
contact@colette.fr
Open from Monday to Saturday 11am to 7pm.

Metro Tuileries or Pyramides / Bus line 68 or 72
Galerie: galerie@colette.fr - Tel: +33 1 55 35 33 97

Atelier Ted Noten exhibition from December 3rd to January 6th at colette

Ted Noten is a Dutch jewellery designer who constantly explores the boundaries of his profession. Once a bricklayer and a psychiatric nurse, he graduated from the Amsterdam Gerrit Rietveld Academy in 1990 and started working on an oeuvre that has certainly influenced the contemporary jewellery field.

Noten has participated in a number of exhibitions worldwide, in a broad spectrum of galleries and museums. Sawing up a Mercedes Benz car into brooches, sealing a little dead mouse wearing a tiny pearl necklace inside a block of acrylate: his work is never far from controversy. Still, Noten honours the specific qualities of jewellery design in which emotions, humour and small stories play the leading part.
Since 2005, Atelier Ted Noten takes on larger projects and has created work for private collectors, local councils, art institutions etc. This includes (interior) design projects, installations and jewellery assignments.

Will be presented at colette:
A freaky Christmas installation including a collection of solid acrylic bags with various enclosures and a number of jewellery items.
-a new series of silver earrings in the shape of 4 typical Ted Noten "icons" such as the Turbo Princess (dead mouse wearing a pearl necklace) and the gun-bag
-many "Fred" pendants
-a display of Custom Jewellery: black lacquered silver brooches made from tags, labels, hangers etc, to be sewed onto your clothes
And many more...

Atelier Ted Noten
December 3rd to January 6th

colette
http://www.colette.fr/
213 rue Saint-Honoré
75001 Paris

Open from Monday to Saturday 11am to 7pm
Tel: +33 1 55 35 33 90 - Fax: +33 1 55 35 33 99
contact@colette.fr

Metro Tuileries or Pyramides / Bus line 68 or 72

Galerie: galerie@colette.fr - Tel: +33 1 55 35 33 97

Pierre Paulin at Alaïa Until december 15th, 2007

At 80 years old, Pierre Paulin is celebrated, consacrated, revered. And yet, this designer with such a clear signature always introduced himself as a "humble craftsman of design. The fashion designer Azzedine Alaïa, regards him as one of the greatest creative artists of his generation. To pay him the hommage he deserves, Alaïa is offering the 350 meters square under a glass roof of his Paris gallery.

Azzedine Alaïa reveals parts from his private collection, as well as those belonging to Didier Krzentowski, the gallery Kreo director, and Carla Sozzani, the owner of "Corso Como", the famous Milan concept store. A unique opportunity to (re) discover the all-about-curve and elasticity style of the designer who shall be honored at an auction at the Artcurial Gallerie on December 19th.

Galerie Azzedine Alaïa
18, rue de la Verrerie
75004 Paris
Tél. : +33 (0)1 42 72 19 19

Gallerie is open every day from 12 Noon to 07pm (free entrance).

SMALL TALK Konstantin Grcic dialogue with the Arts décoratifs museum until January 27th, 2008

The German Konstantin Grcic (born 1965) is one of the finest designers of his generation.
Winner of the Creator of Year Award at the 2007 Salon Maison et Objet, he works in a similar spirit to Jasper Morrison with rigorous and minimalist lines. At the museum’s invitation, Grcic decided to create a dialogue between his own work and some of the works in the museum’s historic collections. Their comparison is accompanied is by a short conversation between the works.


Les Arts Décoratifs
http://www.lesartsdecoratifs.fr/index_gb.html
107, rue de Rivoli 75001 Paris
tél. : 01 44 55 57 50

Tuesdays to Fridays from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Metro : Palais Royal-Musée du Louvre, Tuileries, Pyramides.
Bus : 21, 27, 39, 48, 68, 72, 81, 95.
Parkings : Carrousel du Louvre, rue des Pyramides

Eileen Gray, the secret photographer within... Until December 21st, 2007 at the Gallerie Historismus

The Historismus Gallery presents an important and rare collection of sixty original works on paper by Eileen Gray (Enniscothy, Ireland 1878-Paris, 1976). This collection includes gouaches, collages and photographs never exposed before and covers a period from 1918 to the 1950's. Gray had offered those works to Peter Adam, her friend, biographer and author of a book about her work entitled "Eileen Gray Architecture and Design", to be published soon.

Better known as Designer, notably for the Art Deco style, EILEEN GRAY painter by training, has also left a pictorial work marked by the non-figuration.
Gray's non-figuration began with her first contact with the work of Gerrit Rietveld, the architect and innovative Dutch designer, who became her artistic Idol. From this moment, she repudiated her previous work, a derivative of cubism (a kind of abstraction that was explored in her painting and sculpture at least ten years earlier), that she described as the work of a "Parisian decorator" obsessed with the use of precious materials, rather than by the formal aspect of art. She denounced as a consequence, the "horrors of Art Deco" (…)

In her post-Rietveld period, Gray photographed virtually all her design work. However, her photographs were not simple souvenirs of her creation: they were necessary careful constructivist compositions, sometimes made of everyday objects, that Peter Adam called tablescapes. Influenced by Man Ray and Andre Kertesz, she also photographed domestic and industrial landscapes. These pictures are at least as rare as her drawings.

Roberto Polo, Directeur artistique

Eileen Gray
from november 15th to december 21st, 2007
Free entrance

Historismus Gallerie
www.historismus.com
HÔTEL DE CHAUNES
9 place des Vosges
75004 Paris

mailto: galerie@historismus.com

t. +33 (0)1 42 71 21 60
f. +33 (0)1 42 71 21 57

"Design by Design" A whomb to sleep, red lips to sit...

A whomb where to sleep, a lips shaped couch to sit on, an odd couple in rags, the "Design by design" exhibition, opened on september 26th at the Grand Palais in Paris, is revisiting two centuries of domestic appliances creation on a journey flavoured with surprises and humor.

Since the sixties and the post-modern impact of the eighties, the word ‘design’ has been in trouble. Prey to individual interpretations and long banned from institutional language in France, the word has undergone such inflation that it has become synonymous with “well drawn” or even “trendy”.

Design by design brings together objects and household furniture from the Industrial Revolution to the present day. Rather than follow a chronological arrangement, which is too complex these days, it juxtaposes and draws parallels, triggers surprising short circuits and sparks dialogue between things. This dialogue is enriched by a set of broad essays in the catalogue touching on design and art, fashion, architecture, film, comic books, humour and novels.

The exhibition starts with formal comparisons: straight lines and geometry, curves and biomorphism, playing with form until it teeters on the brink of imbalance, deformity, formlessness. A library stepladder-stool designed by Joseph Hoffman in 1903 compared with a work by Sol Lewitt, or a wooden sofa by Dannhauser (1825) next to a corrugated cardboard ‘bubble’ chair by the architect Frank O.Gehry (1979) raise questions about the relationship between form and technique. The chairs Thonet designed for a neo-rococo drawing room became the famous “bistrot chairs”. Marcel Breuer’s ‘Wassily’ chair (1925) owes its shape more to nomadic fantasies of bicycles and nineteenth-century camping chairs than to “good design”.

Three monumental pieces anchor the circuit: Zaha Hadid’s Iceberg bench, Womb House by the Van Lieshout studio and a Visiona by Verner Panton.



Purchase tickets
online










Visitors information
www.rmn.fr/galeriesnationalesdugrandpalais

Galeries nationales du Grand Palais
3, avenue du Général-Eisenhower - 75008 Paris
Tél. : 01 44 13 17 17 (serveur vocal)
Fax : 01 44 13 17 19

Open
Everyday except Tuesdays.
Closed on 25 December
and 1 January.

Hours
From 10am to 8pm;
from 10am
to 10pm on Wednesdays
and Fridays;
from 10am to 6pm
on 24 and 31 December.
Tickets office closes
45mins before closing time.

Access
M° 1,9,13: Franklin-Roosevelt
ou Champs-Élysées Clemenceau.

Admission
10€; concession: 8€ (13-25 years, large families,
job seekers).
Free for children under 13.

Biedermeier, from Craftsmanship to Design Exhibition 'til 14 January 2008 at Musée du Louvre

An invitation to a journey through political, social and cultural history, the Biedermeier style perfectly embodies the values of a new art of living between 1815 and 1848.

Exposition 18 october 2007 - 14 january 2008
Vienne and Prague, 1815-1830

An aesthetic trend descended from neoclassicism, the Biedermeier style developed in central Europe between 1815 and 1848, the period of peace following the Napoleonic Wars. The Biedermeier style was highly original, at once simple and full of imagination.


An invitation to a journey through political, social and cultural history, the Biedermeier style perfectly embodies the values of a new art of living between 1815 and 1848. The term
“Biedermeier” was derived from the name of a fictional character introduced to readers of a Munich satirical weekly in the 1840s. This everyman, Weiland Gottlieb Biedermaier (the
original spelling) by name, was the embodiment of the model citizen, leading an uneventful and comfortable existence, more concerned with his family and his own naïve attempts at poetry than politics. A nostalgic take on this way of life prevalent in Central Europe in the 19th century, Biedermeier came to describe a style that was cozy and stolid.


The aim of this exhibition is to underscore the singularity of this movement as a harbinger of many aspects of modern aesthetics, including the age of industrial design. The objects presented include furniture, silver, crystal and porcelain pieces, wallpapers and textile samples, together with depictions of interiors, botanical studies and a few paintings. The presentation of these furnishings and objects invites the visitor to consider them under a new light, as original creations notable for their shapes, surfaces and dimensions.

Conference at the auditorium du Louvre : Friday, October 26 2007 at 12:30am, Art History Lectures: Biedermeier and modernity, by Marc Bascou, exhibition curator , and Laurie Stein, art historian, Northfield, Etats-Unis.

Musée du Louvre,
www.louvre.fr
Sully Wing
Salle de la Chapelle
18 October 2007 - 14 January 2008
Admission included in the ticket to the permanent collections.

Getting to the Louvre
Metro: Palais-Royal - Musée du Louvre station.
Bus: The following bus lines stop in front of the Pyramid: 21, 24, 27, 39, 48, 68, 69, 72, 81, 95, and the Paris Open Tour bus.
Car: An underground parking garage is available for those coming by car. The entrance is located on avenue du Général Lemonnier. It is open daily from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m.

Batobus: Get off at the Louvre stop, quai François Mitterrand.

The museum is open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day except Tuesday and the following holidays: January 1st, May 1st, May 8 and December 25, 2007.
It is open until 10 p.m. on Wednesday and Friday evenings except on Wednesday, August 15, 2007 (open until 6 p.m.).
Admission to the Louvre is free on the first Sunday of every month.
The Pyramid and Carrousel arcade entrances are open daily from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m., except Tuesday.
The Passage Richelieu is open daily from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., except Tuesday.
The Porte des Lions entrance is open daily from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., except Tuesday and Friday

Design thinks about you... Did you thought about Design? At the "Cité des sciences" Until Sunday January 27th,

The 2008 Design observer
Until Sunday January 27th, 2008

Design thinks about you... Did you ever thought about Design? For the eighth year in a row, the "Cité des sciences" is welcoming the Design observer, a priviledge rendez-vous with design organised by the Agency for the promotion of industrial creation (APCI).
New shapes, new materials, new objects, the most innovatives realisation of the year will be on display at this annual window display of contemporary design.

The 2008 Design observer, to think Design differently
Thinking Design differently is descovering its true identity. It needs a shift, another perspective in your point of vue.
That's exactly what this exhibition is about through its scenography both educational and surprising. It gives you the keys to discover the variety of steps a designers goes through, and it allow the audience to better "read" spaces, objects and picture in our day-to-day life... thus to better choose those. All sectors will be presented from medical appliances to white goods to sport.

Design thinks about you... everyday! Our paths crossed daily: at home, in public transports, at the office... it's an inner part of our life to an extend that sometimes we simply forget about it.
BEcause contrary to preconceived ideas, Design isn't only about aesthetical qualities. Design can and must raise the bar for life quality, materialise an innovation or more simply creates emotion.


Design is a global approach and its all point resumes into one word: YOU!
Today, design field of expertise are wider then ever and do not self-limit to product design. An example? Everyone has a cell phone, and you can bet it has been designed by a designer, as well as its user graphic interface, its "Packaging", not to forget its brand identity, its website and your connectivity provider's Point of sale...
Whatever applications, they obey to one only ryle: Listen to the consumer.

Access : Claude Bernard, Explora, niveau 1
from 10:00am to 06:oopm (07:oopm on Sundays ). Closes on Mondays
Admission: access granted with the Explora ticket

Cité des sciences et de l'industrie
www.cite-sciences.fr
30 avenue Corentin Cariou
75930 Paris cedex 19