Ateliers Courbet

Dec 07 2022

JAUME ROIG

JAUME ROIG

12.08.2022 – 01.07.2023

Les Ateliers Courbet presents new work by Mallorcan Artist-Ceramicist Jaume Roig in the artist’s first solo exhibition outside of spain.

Les Ateliers Courbet is pleased to present new work by artist-ceramicist Jaume Roig now on view in the Chelsea gallery, marking the first time Roig’s work has been exhibited outside of Spain. Roig lives and works in Mallorca, and draws his inspiration from the natural surroundings of Ses Salines, an area in the southern end of the island, where he finds the necessary elements for his work: stones, the telluric landscapes, the faults of the sea, and the neutral colors of the region. Roig’s work has been praised in Spain, with both public and private installations and exhibitions, and Architectural Digest Spain selected him for “Best of España” 2021.

Roig is a second-generation ceramicist who honed his craft while growing up in his mother’s studio.

“Later I began to look for my own path of work,” Roig shares, “which turned out to be quite figurative but it evolved towards a more crude and abstract way of working with clay. I’m not looking for perfection at all, but I do like to find a finish that looks clean within the chaos.”

Roig’s sculptural vessels and site-specific installations are inspired by ancient forms of expression dating back to cave paintings. His nearly 30 years of experimentation have resulted in Roig’s pared down forms with little to no use of ceramicists’ tools or glazing; highlighting the integrity of material and artisanal dexterity consistent throughout Roig’s body of work.

Roig’s vessels have an organic shape and offer an intimate and modern take on the region’s ancestral ceramic tradition, its cultural heritage, and artist legacy. Two large scale paintings by Roig will be on view in the gallery and serve to complement his ceramics, with both paintings and ceramics combining serene, muted colors, sensuous textures, and organic silhouettes.

“I am honored to unveil Jaume’s new pieces and introduce his body of work to the US with his first solo exhibition outside of Spain,” shared Les Ateliers Founder Melanie Courbet. “Like a frozen movement of a dancer, the sensuous shapes of his sculptural vessels evoke the movements seamlessly controlled by the hands of the artist while the ceramics were being turned. Jaume’s organic forms offer an abstract interpretation of Mallorca’s undulating and mountainous landscapes in both their elegant simplicity, their tactile skin and poetic movement. Each piece embodies the meditative and grounding nature of Jaume’s practice.”

The Jaume Roig exhibition is on view at Les Ateliers Courbet, 134 10th Avenue, New York, now through January 7, 2023. The gallery will host a private reception on December 8, 2022.

Works on View

no data found

Dec 07 2022

DESIGN MIAMI

DESIGN MIAMI/

11.30.2022 – 12.04.2022

Following the ‘Golden Age’ theme of the fair, the installation will focus on time-honored bronzesmithing techniques from around the world with new sculptural pieces resulting from Melanie Courbet’s tight collaboration with the artists and master-artisans.

Ateliers Courbet returns to Design Miami/ this month, bringing three young artists and artisans for the first time to the US — French designer Emma Donnersberg, Chilean artist Abel Cárcamo, and Moroccan wood sculptor Hamza Kadiri — all highly regarded in their respective countries.

The New York-based gallery will unveil sculptural bronze pieces developed by the artists in collaboration with Courbet for their respective solo exhibitions coming up at the gallery in 2023, which will mark each artist’s first ever solo show. These editions will be complemented by recent works by American designer Jonathan Hansen, Italian sculptor Gianluca Pacchioni, German designer Bodo Sperlein, and Burkinabe Maison Intègre’s latest bronze series by French designer Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance.

In line with the gallery’s ongoing mission to highlight the artisanal dexterity of the master-craftsmen it represents, the installation will highlight the work of Fonderie de Coubertin and Fonderie Fusions’ revered bronzesmiths in France, as well as Belgium’s art founders De Clerq and Ginsburg. The works on view result from years of collaboration between Ateliers Courbet, artisans, craftsmen, foundries, and workshops around the globe.

Embracing Design Miami/’s 2022 theme, The Golden Age: Looking to the Future, each piece in Ateliers Courbet’s exhibition embodies the various stages of bronze fabrication, from hand-molding or 3D molding of the original models, the detailed transcription of such into lost-wax or sand-casting molds, to the painstaking patinas.

For the 18th edition of Design Miami/, the gallery will divide its installation into two spaces; with Oscar Ono flooring uniting the area. One side highlights the Penzai series with abstract expressions and bronze sculptures resulting from the ongoing dialogue between French designer Emma Donnersberg and Ateliers Courbet founder Melanie Courbet.

The Penzai series includes limited edition tables and lights inspired by the ancient Chinese art of depicting artistically formed trees, plants, and landscapes in miniature.

Each piece in the series was hand-modeled and sculpted by Abel Cárcamo working in Spain, and later cast in bronze by the bronzesmiths of Fonderie Fusions—David de Gourcuff’s esteemed art foundry based in Auvergne, France. The space showcasing the Penzai series offers an immersive and meditative experience kindred to a Zen Garden, and provides the visitor with a sense of wandering through nature.

Unveiling at Design Miami/ and created in collaboration with Ateliers Courbet for the gallery’s installation at the annual design fair, Hamza Kadiri’s Eros Brut table exemplifies the Moroccan sculptor’s artistic vocabulary and his rarefied wood expertise. Entirely hand-crafted by Kadiri and his team of master wood crafters from one solid trunk of Ash, the piece highlights the painstaking details achieved by the numerous hours of carving and charred finishing using the traditional Japanese Shou-Sugi-Ban technique. The piece is then hand-coated with layers of organic beeswax finish. As a nod to the bronze-focus in Ateliers Courbet’s booth, the counter levered tabletop is secured with a sculptural bronze medallion.

Kadiri hails from a long lineage of wood experts and is highly revered in Morocco where he leads a workshop in Casablanca. He has access to rare, precious wood kinds, and his body of work reflects the artist’s reverence for wood, its properties, and characteristics. Sought after by international collectors, Kadiri’s highly sculptural, contemporary works embodies the artist’s mastery in marquetry and cabinetry as much as his reverence for the raw material. Ateliers Courbet will present Kadiri’s first solo exhibition in January 2023.

Also on view is Italian artist, metal sculptor, and lighting designer Gianluca Pacchioni’s Fossil Screen II—a wood structure covered with liquid bronze and hand-rubbed brass patina with a solid brass frame. American designer Jonathan Hansen presents a textured cast bronze biomorphic bowl and vase. German born and London-based designer Bodo Sperlein is presenting a bench. The flooring in the space will be European oak end grain flooring by the wood crafters at Paris-based Oscar Ono. The Qubes collection was designed by Oscar Ono and encompasses different patterns in variable sizes, and the materiality carries on his long-standing interest in the history of materials and how matter undergoes metamorphic processes over time.

Ateliers Courbet also is pleased to introduce the Maison Intègre editions, which support the apprenticeship and education of Burkinabe artisan-founders in collaboration with esteemed French designer Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance. Much of the design vocabulary of this work is inspired by vernacular architecture and traditional objects of West African cultural heritage. The bronzesmiths use the time-honored technique of lost-wax casting and recycled metals to materialize the designs. From the Maison Intègre workshops in Ouagadougou, the French designer and Burkinabe bronze craftsmen worked, shaped, and molded beeswax to make a rich collection of seven sculptural pieces.

The exhibition will debut at Design Miami/ on Preview Day, Tuesday, November 29, 2022, and will run from November 30 through December 4, 2022, in Booth G18 at Pride Park (opposite the Miami Beach Convention Center).

Sep 21 2022

ETHAN STEBBINS

ETHAN STEBBINS

09.22.2022 – 10.29.2022

Les Ateliers Courbet is pleased to introduce American artist and master stone carver Ethan Stebbins with the artist’s first gallery exhibition opening on September 22nd at the Chelsea gallery. The show will unveil four unique, large-scale pieces hand-crafted by the artist in collaboration with Courbet.

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.

“My work mainly relies on paying close attention to the organic matter’s properties. One must appreciate the individual characteristics of a certain wood or stone type before shaping them and joining the two together. There is a rather special moment when you carve– a quiet, flashing moment, when the natural character of the stone reveals itself. This moment is everything.” – Ethan Stebbins

Maison Intégre finisher inspects Mask Sconce in Burkina Faso workshop.

Inspired by the natural landscape and surroundings of his studio in coastal Maine, the artist has been investigating and highlighting the inherent beauty of the stones and other organic materials he carefully selects within a 10-mile radius. He searches the rocky coast for tumble stones to hand-cut and chisel while emphasizing their natural surfaces. His work often abides by the Wabi-Sabi ethos of Japanese design, drawing inspiration from Japanese American furniture maker George Nakashima’s work with instinctual woodcraft techniques that embrace the natural edge and textures of the wood.

Resulting from the artist’s ongoing dialogue and creative collaboration with Les Ateliers Courbet founder Melanie Courbet, this series includes an organic bibliothèque sculpture, an asymmetrical Wabi-Sabi coffee table, and a sculptural bed frame and bench, both of which use the Japanese joinery system that consists of interlocking pieces of wood without any hardware support.

Stebbins began training as a stonemason in 1997, building dry stone walls with local fieldstone. Since then, he has pursued apprenticeships under master gardener Masahiko Seko and American master craftsman Chris Tanguay.

The Ethan Stebbins exhibition will run from September 22 through October 29, 2022, at Les Ateliers Courbet, 134 10th Avenue, New York. The exhibit will be supported by a private reception at 6:00 p.m. on the evening of September 22nd.

Maison Intégre workshop in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.

Works on View

Wabi Sabi Coffee Table

WABI SABI DAY BED

WABI SABI BIBLIOTHÉQUE

SCULPTURAL SIDE TABLE

Aug 12 2022

KATHERINE GLENDAY

KATHERINE GLENDAY

KATHERINE GLENDAY 2022

08.9.2022 – 09.22.2022

ATELIERS COURBET is pleased to have once again worked with South African ceramicist, Katherine Glenday, to bring a fresh ensemble of porcelain vessels to the New York gallery. While Glenday is known for her exploration of white, soft bisque porcelain’s translucence, she has always engaged with color and the use of subtle pigment in her work with clay bodies. This exhibition highlights Glenday’s continued exploration of color and pigmentation, and her introduction of darker porcelain to her ceramic repertoire.

After forty years of working with porcelain Katherine Glenday explains that the material has accompanied her along her artistic journey, as well as her personal experiences. Each vessel reflects a unique set of circumstances, elevated by masterful and nuanced technique. She states that “grief” was what inspired her to work with darker clays beginning in 2020. Glenday found the black clay vessels to be meditative, grounding, and comforting. Absorbing and reflecting light much differently than white porcelain might, the darker vessels highlight the intensity of color and the pigments employed.

Considering her vessels to be “canvases in movement,” Katherine Glenday balances the approach of both a painter and ceramicist as she explores the materiality and matter through an “alchemical creative process.” For her new work with darker clay bodies and explorative firing temperatures, she made the decision to keep the form of the vessel relatively homogenous, lending more emphasis to the surfaces and pigments.

Katherine Glenday has found freedom in softer surfaces and lower firing temperatures. This exploration has captured a “chalky, nuanced light that seems to wrap softly around the vessels. They invoke feelings of landscapes and distant horizon-lines and contribute to a broader conversation in the history of art. They resonate with explorations of color by other masters, “from European old masters to Rothko’s abstract investigation of soft dusty colors.”

Works on View

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.

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.

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