Ateliers Courbet

Apr 26 2022

MAISON INTÈGRE

Maison Integre and Noe Duchaufour Lawrance Y Lamp being fabricated by Burkino Faso bronze artisan.

MAISON INTÈGRE

05.12.2022 – 07.26.2022

ATELIERS COURBET is pleased to introduce Maison Intègre Editions from Burkina Faso, West Africa and support the studio’s commitment to foster the country’s ongoing craftsmanship legacy as it brings the local artisans together with international guest designers and artisans in residence. Opening May 12, the Maison Intègre exhibition will unveil the studio’s inaugural series of limited-edition bronze pieces created in collaboration with French designer Noé Duchaufour- Lawrance.

Lobi Ladder in a Kassena village in Burkina Faso, an inspiration for the Maison Intégre x Noé Duchaufour Lawrance collection.

Maison Intégre bronze artisans use the lost wax bronze casting method in Burkina Faso.

Founded by Ambre Jarno in 2017, Maison Intègre is a metalsmithing workshop and foundry based in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, that fosters West Africa’s long craftsmanship lineage. Maison Intègre’s Burkinabe artisans carry on the lost wax bronze casting technique that has largely remained unchanged since its inception millennia ago. In 2022, the studio built a comprehensive workshop to support the artisanship of fifteen artisans, a meaningful step to protect the craft traditions and provide a livelihood for the artisans.

Maison Intégre artisan sculpts a clay mask to be made into the Mask Sconce by Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance.

Maison Intégre finisher inspects Mask Sconce in Burkina Faso workshop.

As part of its program, Maison Intègre has invited French designer Noé Duchaufour Lawrance to spend a significant amount of time with the studio’s artisans and community in Burkina Faso. The series of bronze and brass works resulting from the designer’s immersion in the local artisans’ environment and their cultural heritage, draws inspiration from Burkina Faso’s vernacular architecture and archetypal forms. Duchaufour Lawrance reinterprets and translates forms traditionally sculpted in wood or hand-formed in clay into a single material — bronze. Collaboratively, Jarno, Duchaufour Lawrance, and the Burkinabe artisans used the local time-honored techniques to sculpt beeswax molds, later used to cast the resulting forms with liquid bronze.

“When living in Burkina Faso, you are constantly engaging with crafts in everyday life; you have to be creative and use whatever is around you to fabricate objects—whether functional or artistic. Everything is repurposed, repaired, and transformed with some kind of natural grace, all the while keeping it down to the essential, the functionality. I wish to share and communicate West Africa’s cultural confluences spanning from the Senufo and Mossi arts to a broader West African culture.” — Maison Intégre founder Ambre Jarno

Maison Intégre workshop in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.

Feb 17 2022

CONTINUUM PIETER MAES

CONTINUUM

PIETER MAES

03.16.2022 – 05.03.2022

Les Ateliers Courbet will unveil Continuum, a collection of limited-edition furniture pieces by Belgian-born, Paris-based designer Pieter Maes in collaboration with Dutch master woodcrafter Rutger Graas, the esteemed French upholsterers of Jouffre, the stone artisans of Il Granito, and 3DW. Informed by his engaged dialogue with each of the artisans, Maes’ sketches and paints continuous lines and curved silhouettes, drawing inspiration from the timeless quality of archetypal forms. Incepted and creative directed by Ateliers Courbet founder Melanie Courbet, Continuum is an early iteration of the gallery’s Editions Courbet program dedicated to further supporting the world’s rarefied master-craftsmen. The program nurtures its ateliers by fostering the apprenticeship of younger artisan generations with international artists’ collaborations. Every year, the program will bring guest designers and artists together with selected ateliers, to create a limited series of designs inspired by the expertise gleaned from long lineages of craftsmanship.

In this collection, Maes worked with four ateliers throughout Europe to create his Fold sofa, Palindrome chairs and daybeds, and a series of sculptural Dolm and Ur tables. “Pieter’s collection, as well as the Editions Courbet program, reflect the original intention behind the gallery; to support our ateliers and today’s rarefied artisans by initiating and promoting their collaborations with contemporary luminaries. The series is a paean to the master craftsmen behind it, their detailed work and dedication, as well as the rich legacies of excellence and humility each carries on,” says Melanie Courbet.

The collection takes the designer’s vocabulary in a new direction and builds on the designer’s past work for Vincent Van Duysen and collaborations with the likes of, Tribu, and Ligne Roset. “The monolithic forms of this collection are about breaking with the traditions of industrial design,” says Maes. The pieces combine clean, modern lines, with organic curves, generous proportions, and textured materials.

Maes and the masters materialize elegant and simple forms that evoke artifacts from the Neolithic and Cycladic Periods, as well as works of 20th-century abstract artists and sculptors. Central to Maes’ design vocabulary is the notion of simplicity and timelessness. “There’s something powerful about the serenity and mystery of these essential shapes. I have become obsessed with making simple, unfussy work that triggers something very ancient and dormant in people, no matter where they come from,” Maes continues. “There are many ways to get to the idea of timelessness. I like to position my aesthetic somewhere between the archaic and the futuristic and source inspiration from 3.4 million years of stone, bronze, and iron artifacts.”

Works on View

Feb 08 2022

TAKEAMI / TAGAMONO

TAKEAMI / TAGAMONO

02.10.2022 – 03.11.2022

The reverence for craftsmen in Japanese culture has contributed to the longevity of Japanese craft traditions. Central to the Japanese craft ethos is the connection between the artisan and the material, a process that begins with the discerning selection of materials. The works on view highlight two time-honored techniques: takeami basket weaving and tagamono woodcraft.

Seventh-generation master-woodcrafter and artist, Shuji Nakagawa Mokkougei carries on the finest tradition of wood-crafting from the region of Kyoto. Techniques passed on from father to son are embodied in Nakagawa-San’s contemporary iterations of the Ki-Oke, the Japanese wooden bucket. The artisans use tagamono, the process of fastening wooden slats in a circle using a hoop called a taga and shaving the slats with a block plane until they become a single, unified object.

Takeami, bamboo basket weaving, dates back as far as the 14th-Century as a venerated craft tradition in Japan. Aspiring weavers would spend years learning under the guidance of master artisans. The meticulous nature of the craft begins with the harvesting, processing, and splicing of the bamboo. A strong, yet lightweight and flexible material, the artisan explores the bounds of the material through intricate plaiting and weaving techniques. The antique woven pieces embody the Japanese culture of meticulous work and craftsmanship heritage that honors the time, dedication, and detailed simplicity of craft.

The exhibition is supplemented by photographs by Mike Mager’s “Shokunin: Japan’s Vanishing Masters” that documents contemporary craftsmen in Japan.

Works on View

KI-OKE | JINDAI-SUGI

KONOHA | JINDAI-SUGI

INDIGO TABLE

KURO-GAKI PERSIMMON TRAY

KEYAKI JAPANESE ZELKOVA WOOD TRAY

Nov 23 2021

Design Miami/ 2021

DESIGN MIAMI/ 2021

12.01.2021 – 12.05.2021

In the gallery’s third presentation at Design Miami/, Ateliers Courbet brings together a selection of designers and craftsmen with a focus on a new collection, Topographic Memories. The collection is a limited series of hand-crafted pieces resulting from a three-year collaboration between the master artisans of Ateliers Saint-Jacques, the revered Fonderie de Coubertin, Israeli designer Raphael Navot and Ateliers Courbet. As part of the gallery’s dedication to the ongoing craftsmanship legacy of its ateliers, the collection is part of the Editions Courbet program which brings together master craftsmen and contemporary designers under the creative direction of gallery founder, Melanie Courbet.

The collection is the product of an in-depth dialogue between Navot, Ateliers Saint-Jacques, and Fonderie de Coubertin, the centuries-old French workshops, that carry on the crafts of stone carving and metalsmithing respectively. To emphasize the highly specialized techniques of the artisans, Navot chose materials that would be both highlighted and enhanced by the artisans’ carving, casting, and finishing expertise. The Topographic Memories collection manifests Navot’s longstanding fascination for traditional crafts and the essence and stories of raw materials. The collection includes tables in stone and bronze, and table lamps and pendants in bronze informed by Navot’s ongoing exploration of topographies and the geological history of Earth, two enduring sources of inspiration for the designer.

Navot’s Topographic Memories editions expand upon the designer’s longstanding interest in the traditional crafts and cultural legacies carried on by the master artisans he often collaborates with. The collection is set in conversation with works by Raphael materialized by other craftsmen. The wood crafters at Oscar Ono collaborated with Navot on the Forêt collection of European oak end grain flooring inspired by Parisian cobblestones. Navot’s Moon sofa editions for Domeau Peres and his artist rug edition developed with the master weavers of Diurne are to be presented at Design Miami/.

The booth sets Navot’s design language in dialogue with other artists and artisans represented by the gallery. The presentation includes a selection of works from Mauro Mori’s solo exhibition at the gallery, Portraits, of hand-carved Albizia Rosa sculptural tables, the Listener, and Figlio di Audiface, along with the Listener in white limestone. A contemporary of Navots at Design Academy Eindhoven, Pieter Maes’ Palindrome brings together the wood crafting of Rutger Graas and the master upholstery of Jouffre. Smoked stoneware ceramics from French-based Karen Swami brings the artist’s exploration of texture, form, and materiality in her vessels. A Bronze Contour side table from Bodo Sperlein’s latest exhibition with the gallery 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.

Works on View

FIGLIO DI AUDIFACE CONSOLE

Nov 06 2021

Salon Art + Design

SALON ART + DESIGN

SALON ART + DESIGN 2021

11.11.2021 – 11.15.2021

In the gallery’s debut presentation at Salon Art + Design, Ateliers Courbet will bring together a selection of designers and craftsmen with Pieters Maes’ Editions Courbet collection acting as a focal point. The gallery will unveil its inaugural Editions Courbet collection with limited-edition furniture, exclusive to the gallery, by Belgian-born designer Pieter Maes. Materialized in collaboration with Dutch woodcrafter Rutger Graas, esteemed French upholsterer Jouffre, the stone artisans of Il Granito, and wood manufacturers of 3DW the collection reflects Maes’ mature understanding of the materials, their nature, and respective craftsmanship techniques. The new designs are a modern take on timeless, archetypal forms executed with time-honored techniques.

With two series of Editions Courbet designs to be unveiled this year, at Salon and Design Miami/, Ateliers Courbet’s ongoing program invites selected artists to create a limited series of designs inspired by the expertise gleaned from long lineages of craftsmanship creatively directed by gallery founder Melanie Courbet. The program reflects the original intention behind the gallery: to support today’s rarefied artisans by initiating and promoting their collaborations with contemporary designers.

Through this exploration of 21st-century craftsmanship, Maes’ fluid forms in wood, upholstery, and stone result from the designer’s relationship with the European master artisans involved. Maes’ visceral appeal for archetypal forms has unleashed a personal body of work freed from the rational forms of the manufactured furniture design world where he excelled for over a decade. The designer’s vocabulary embodies his ongoing interest in the resonant quality of pure forms found in artistic expressions spanning from the Neolithic or Cycladic Periods to the primitive art expressions of modern artists including Isamu Noguchi or Brancusi among others.

Set in conversation with Maes’ Fold Sofa, Palindrome, Palindrome Bench, and Ur Side Table the presentation will include a selection of works from Mauro Mori’s solo exhibition at the gallery, Portraits, of hand-carved Albizia Rosa sculptural tables, the Monade and Frowning, as well as his Narciso cast brass mirror. Two lighting elements, the Monk Eye pendants, designed by Raphael Navot and materialized by the craftsmen of Ateliers Saint Jacques, and the Editions Courbet B Lamp by Thierry Dreyfus will illuminate the booth. The presentation will include an installation of porcelain works by South African artist Katherine Glenday, stoneware from Peter Speliopoulos along with London-based Valéria Nascimento’s wall-mounted Black Drift triptych of hand-formed porcelain suspended on charred wood panels, and Bodo Sperlein’s Contour side table.