At the heart of the Grand Palais, the object regains its place as a link between the creator and the visitor. This presentation of works is associated with a cycle of conferences offered by various specialists. Over these five days, exhibits and film projections on fine crafts will also be offered to the public. Among the 107 works by these artists, those of Antoine Leperlier, who likes to define himself as a “handyman” of ancestral glassmaking savoir-faire, are particularly noteworthy. Through never-before-seen technical procedures, the handyman turns the resonance of time into his materials, just as bronze and marble can play this role for Space. A new bronze figure by British artist Paul Day is also worth discovering. With his famous sculptures of Lovers gracing the Saint-Pancras train station, he is now presenting a sentimental taunt of relationships with others and current social norms at a time when it’s with an ear to the telephone that women discover the world around them. Finally, “technical couturier” Franck Sorbier enchants our desires for romantic outfits by presenting one of his metamorphoses of tulle, horsehair, lace, and silk: a bouffant white mini crewneck dress who’s poetry reveals a pure moment of grace. It’s all happening at the Grand Palais on Avenue Winston Churchill in Paris.
The international biennale of fine crafts and creation, entitled “Revelations”, will write the first page of its story underneath the great glass ceiling of the Grand Palais. Sheltered within this Belle Époque metal behemoth, 260 exhibitors from the four corners of the earth will divulge contemporary creations and fine crafts to buyers and curious onlookers alike. Honored in this first artistic rendezvous: Norway, fiefdom of a lively creative scene, resolutely innovative and avant-garde. Through these exceptional pieces that left their mark on History, the entire universe of these artists is unveiled beneath an immense gossamer archway. Artwork is set up amongst passersby like a banquet on long tables that you’ll only wish could be endless. Setting itself apart from conventional exhibits, this Banquet is a way to invite all spectators from a different level of consideration; neither above now below, neither before nor after, the works of art are all on the same pedestal that in this way abolishes all barriers between the genres, while mankind is invited to confront, as artist Antoine Leperlier puts it, “Prejudices relative to the pre-established categories”, in order to finally “judge by a piece […].”
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