While it is true that I often like to work in series, I also take care to avoid being trapped in a system, a formula, becoming repetitive, doubtless to stave off boredom for my own sake and spare those who follow the progress of my work from boredom also.

So for this new exhibition, I have deliberately aimed for a collection of eight pieces that are all different from one another.

In fact, I have the impression that I have designed a collection of things rather than a collection of objects.

I am not necessarily trying to outline the distinction between what defines an object and what defines a thing, but I tend to think that objects fulfil functions, while things propose uses, that functions are to be used but uses can be imagined, that objects have a precise definition, while the definition of things remains more or less vague, out of focus, and always depends on the appreciation of the person involved. We could consider the things I have designed for this exhibition to be the materialisation of thoughts, objects for meditation, like suggestions, objects open to interpretation. We could consider these things as literal objects, concise expressions of three-dimensional shapes, like presences that are austere and sensual, intense and stimulating. Or we could take these things to be beautiful objects, objects of a glittering, transcending beauty.

It is the extremely shiny surface and the lustre of the material of one thing that absorbs our attention, stimulates our perception and encourages us to touch it. The repetition of the material, lacquered plaques of aluminium creates the kinetic vibration that attracts us to another. The emptiness created by the design of the base of another, the empty space for no particular purpose enables the compact, colourful volume to levitate. The way a mural parabola is dimensioned creates a contour, a shape, a shade and gives the light depth in another. With another, we are intrigued by the shape of the suspension in terms of its stability, materiality, and use. Another gives the impression of being in the presence of an object that is perhaps unfinished through the visible assembly instructions, the soldering lines that enable the volume to be built, the memory of an action past. Another, through the action of an articulated and off-kilter arm creates a play on light and shadow with a gesture of extreme simplicity, without the use of abstract or sophisticated technology.

More than ever, I feel I am taken up in a movement that is to be found and proven in moving forward, a movement where the design of a thing is dependent on the design of the following thing, where it is more and more difficult for me to express why, only how, where it is more and more difficult to understand how these things can happen, find their place in the complexity and panorama of our contemporary landscape.

More than ever, when asked why I design, I can only answer by designing, I can only answer by satisfying, even provisionally, my overpowering desire to design things. And the galerie Kreo has, yet again, offered me the perfect sounding board for the concretisation, materialisation and exhibition of these different things.

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Pierre Charpin, November 2008.