The exhibition follows the great success of selected pieces previewed exclusively in Basel during the renowned Design Miami fair. The “Ignotus Nomen” collection includes eight pieces: bench, box, bookshelf, coffee table, console, desk, lamp, and vase. The material used for the furniture is Krion® (type of Corian®) and the shape is in black mat resign or white lacquered resin...
The exhibition follows the great success of selected pieces previewed exclusively in Basel during the renowned Design Miami fair. The “Ignotus Nomen” collection includes eight pieces: bench, box, bookshelf, coffee table, console, desk, lamp, and vase. The material used for the furniture is Krion® (type of Corian®) and the shape is in black mat resign or white lacquered resin.
Pierre Charpin is currently celebrated with a retrospective at the Grand Hornu Museum in Belgium until September 11.
“When I think about the meaning and the reasons that drove me to draw this new collection, I have the feeling that each trial to define them brings me more towards closure than openness.It is as if the large possibilities which resonate in these pieces prevented me from fixating their representation. Table, shelf, box, bench, console, lamp, vase, each of these objects is inhabited by a presence. Enigmatic, these forms — black or white — are at the same time rigid and sensual, and show off their uselessness quietly. Whether they are lying down or standing straight, they exist in front of us without revealing any information about their origins or provenance. They seem to be washed up, like objects on the shore due to the never ending flux of the sea. Smooth and polished, we can’t see exactly what they are made of. They are pure forms, pure colors, before being materials. These forms attract our attention, poke our imagination. They put in perspective our relationship with objects, offering a more poetic and spiritual answer.
These forms, presences, diffuse their strength to the objects, turning them into a presence of its own. This presence can be the only thing that is above signification, and at least above all justification.
The series of objects distinguishes itself from the rest also by their rigorous design. More than ever to simplify for me is to propose an exemption of meaning. It is to propose forms which are not quite full, but full of meaning. It is to propose objects as receptors and not signifiers. When it comes to the title IGNOTUS NOMEN, it indicates in an explicit way that this series has a name, but this name is unknown to us, or that it hasn’t revealed itself to us just yet.”
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Pierre Charpin, August 2010