Owen

Sep 02 2021

Mauro Mori Portraits Series

PORTRAITS

MAURO MORI

09.30.2021 – 11.04.2021

New York master craftsmen’s gallery Les Ateliers Courbet opens its fall exhibition program with Italian artist Mauro Mori’s new ‘Portraits’ series — on view September 30 – November 4. The artist’s third solo exhibition with the gallery will unveil Mori’s latest functional works of art developed in collaboration with Ateliers Courbet founder Melanie Courbet over the past two years. The series consists of unique sculptural tables and daybeds, hand-carved by the artist in Albizia Rosa wood in his Seychelles studio. ‘Portraits’ also includes three limited-edition stone tables — smaller iterations of the original, wood consoles, sculpted by the artist in limestone in his Milan studio.

For over thirty years, Italian sculptor-designer Mauro Mori (b. 1965, Cremona, Italy) has built a cohesive body of work including sculptures both functional and non-functional, hand-carved in stone or wood, or molded in metal. The artist uses time-honored techniques as he sculpts each of his pieces. Mori has drawn inspiration from his extensive travels around the world, his sensitivity for the natural environment, and the timeless beauty of simple, archetypal, and organic forms. While he discovered his vocation when sculpting wood in the Seychelles where he lives half of the year, Mori was trained as a traditional wood and stone artisan in his native Italy. The maturity of his work today reflects the artist’s ongoing
research and explorations across mediums and sculpting techniques.

“My work is deeply informed by my longstanding interest in the symbols omnipresent throughout civilizations and historical periods, up until today. Whether sought in historical periods or in nature, these elements of inspiration eventually translate into a contemporary and very personal language.” — Mauro Mori

The ‘Portraits’ series results from a two-year collaboration between the artist and Ateliers Courbet founder Melanie Courbet as part of the gallery’s new Editions Courbet program. The program, creatively directed by Melanie Courbet, aims to further support today’s rarefied master artisans by creating and supporting new bodies of work and fostering or initiating new collaborations with contemporary artists.

“ ‘Portraits’ is close to my heart as Mauro Mori and I have spent extensive hours discussing the creative direction, the materials, drawing inspiration from the artistic periods and sources that Mauro and I have long shared. The boldest example being the Cycladic and Primitive Arts forms, which can be found both in his body of work and in the gallery’s selection and curatorial choices. ‘Portraits’ is also a particular capsule as part of the Editions Courbet Program, in that Mauro is both the artist and the craftsman behind the work.”- Melanie Courbet

Works on View

THE LISTENER CONSOLE

FIGLIO DI AUDIFACE CONSOLE

Aug 24 2021

Bodo Sperlein Contour Collection

CONTOUR

BODO SPERLEIN

11.09.2021 – 01.08.2022

Les Ateliers Courbet unveils an exhibition of new designs by London-based designer Bodo Sperlein as part of his Contour collection. The new Contour editions expand upon Sperlein’s ongoing design investigation of sensuous lines and curved silhouettes drawing inspiration from the clean-curved silhouettes of the 20^th century Art Nouveau movement. For Sperlein, “The Contour furniture range is a celebration of skills and crafts that push boundaries in creating intricate curves; which only master makers can accomplish, giving the wood and bronze pieces a fluid sculptural appearance, which is reminiscent of the Japanese influences on the Wiener Secession movement.”

Long drawn to Sperlein’s original Contour collection (c. 2009) which included a table, bench, and chair, Courbet encouraged the designer to expand the collection with a new console, chair, and side table developed exclusively for the gallery. With this growing body of work, the designer pays homage to the artisanal dexterity of his woodcrafter-collaborators in London. While the wood pieces challenge the material’s ductility, his latest cast bronze iteration emphasizes the consistent visual and tactile sensuality in the designer’s vocabulary as the dual bronze finish highlights the movements and folds of the works.

In developing the bronze editions Sperlein had the opportunity to experiment with a material he had not used previously. Bronze allows for thinner and more refined forms and presents the opportunity to experiment with texture through the process of patination. The skilled artisans in the Prague foundry sand cast the piece to achieve the contrasting polished underside with the exterior’s tactile patina emphasizing the versatility of the material and dexterity of the artisans.

The wood pieces are handcrafted in the UK by British artisans, the pieces are available in wood treated using the traditional Shou Sugi Ban technique. Originated in Japan in the 18^th century, Shou Sugi Ban involves charring a wood surface to render it a deep charcoal, with the process imparting the resulting piece, called “yakisugi”, with an undeniable gravitas. The blackening of the wood reveals striking clean, distinct lines and an inherent textural beauty, balanced by the impeccable fluidity of the piece’s mirrored curvature. The pieces are available in a variety of materials including walnut, beechwood treated with the Shou Sugi Ban technique, and select pieces are available in bronze.

Works on View

Aug 24 2021

Stefan Sagmeister Beautiful Numbers

BEAUTIFUL NUMBERS

STEFAN SAGMEISTER + LOBMEYR

10.14.2021 – 12.09.2021

Les Ateliers Courbet is pleased to present Stefan Sagmeister’s ‘Beautiful Numbers’; the designer’s latest body of work that presents an uplifting message illustrating positive trends pulled from selected data records in civic and environmental history. The ensemble on view at the New York gallery from October 14 – December 9, 2021, includes works on canvas, a film, and a series of hand-painted tumblers in collaboration with Viennese family-owned glass manufacturer J.&L. Lobmeyr. Stefan Sagmeister is a New York-based designer of Austrian origins whose philosophically driven, ontological, and innovative design vocabulary has earned him international recognition.

Created throughout 2020, during the worldwide pandemic and socio-political tensions, ‘Beautiful Numbers’ considers how, despite media’s depictions of doom and pessimism, many facets of human life have improved over the past century. Informed by Harvard psychologist and public intellectual Steven Pinker’s book ‘Enlightenment Now’, which urges us to step back from the immediacy of the news cycle and examine the progress of humanity on a larger time scale, Sagmeister visualizes positive trends in the trajectory of mankind. Sagmeister looks at data — from the number of females in Parliament to literacy levels, to suicide rates — and visualizes them by transforming 19th Century genre paintings, embroidered canvases, lenticular prints, and hand-painted water glasses with innovative graph forms to represent the progress made in recent history.

For Sagmeister, ‘Beautiful Numbers’ is emblematic of how the long-term approach he cultivates in his design practice alters perceptions from the here and now to a longer arc of history. “Short-term media like Twitter and hourly news create an impression of a world out of control, with democracy in peril, ubiquitous conflicts, and an overall outlook of doom. But if we look at developments concerning the world from a long-term perspective – the only sense making way – almost any aspect concerning humanity seems to get better. Fewer people go hungry, fewer people die in wars and natural disasters, more people live in democracies – and live much longer lives – than ever before. 200 years ago 9 out of 10 people could neither read nor write, now it is just 1 out of 10.”

The multimedia exhibition will include a selection of works on canvas, a film, and the hand-painted water glasses Sagmeister created with the Viennese family-owned glass manufacturer, J. & L. Lobmeyr. In the artist’s second collaboration with Lobmeyr, the centuries-old craftsmanship mastery of Lobmeyr merges with the timeless design inclinations of Sagmeister to create a series of glasses that depict positive or neutral data visualizations of environmental developments from recent history. The series is composed of eight botanical illustrations by Raxenne Maniquiz which are hand-painted on No. 4 Beer Tumblers by artisans at Lobmeyr.

The exhibition programming will bring Sagmeister into conversation with Dr. Steven Pinker in a virtual event on Thursday, October 28 at 6:30 EST where both will speak to the ideas that the exhibition centers on. To attend this virtual event email gallery@ateliercourbet.com for details.

Jul 20 2021

KATHERINE GLENDAY

KATHERINE GLENDAY

06.30.2017 – 09.07.2017

Based in South Africa, Katherine Glenday explores the range of porcelain’s expressive qualities both artistically and through the techniques she has mastered. The material’s translucence is emphasized by the artist’s use of minerals and oxides creating gestural strokes and diffuse smudges. Glenday’s pieces are ethereal expressions combining meditative elements and calligraphic movements.

Works on View

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Jul 20 2021

LOBMEYR

VIENNA’S CRAFTSMANSHIP & DESIGN LEGACY

LOBMEYR

11.15.2016 – 01.15.2017

“When you go from a normal glass to this, it modifies your behavior. You become more graceful. And that’s an extraordinary thing to get for seventy dollars.” –Murray Moss

This exhibition highlights the ongoing master-craftsmanship and design legacy of revered Austrian glass manufacturers, Lobmeyr. The pieces on view provide a glimpse into Lobmeyr’s exhaustive portfolio of glassware spanning nearly two hundred years of master-craftsmanship and visionary design collaborations.

Since its inception in 1823, the family-run manufactory has consistently been at the forefront of changes in design, collaborating with luminaries such as Josef Hoffmann, Adolf Loos, Oswald Haerdtl, Stefan Sagmeister, Michael Anastassiades, FormaFantasma, and Ted Muehling. Also applied to lighting, the Viennese manufacturers’ state-of-the-art craftsmanship may be seen in pieces such as the iconic “Metropolitan” chandeliers, designed for the Metropolitan opera house at Lincoln Center 50 years ago.

While the story of Lobmeyr is one that chronicles the past 200 years of design, it also provides insight into the mastery of crystal making and cutting that the manufacturers have passed along from one generation to the next. The art of drinking – the action, the ritual, the glass itself – is one which we perform everyday. The history of Lobmeyr and its two centuries of drink-ware is enmeshed in the hanging cultures of each era, providing countless insights into our history from the Beidermeier through to the present day.