Jean-Michel Othoniel: Secret Flower Sculptures

World renowned sculptor Jean-Michel Othoniel will open a new exhibit, Secret Flower Sculptures, at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum on March 12. A site specific sculpture and four new paintings were made for the Museum’s Hostetter Gallery along with a presentation of his 2015 Versailles project. Another sculpture will be installed atop the Museum’s rooftop.

Two large sculptures will face one another across the gardens of the Museum. Peony, The Knot of Shame will be suspended from the Hostetter Gallery ceiling, surrounded by gold paintings. Outdoors and across on the Palace roof, The Rose des Vents will be a gold, aluminum kinetic sculpture made to capture and reflect sunlight in all directions as it turns in the wind. This sculpture pays homage to the ancient device used to gauge wind direction. Othoniel works mainly with glass, depicting its timelessness as well as its paradox of fragility and strength.

The influence behind creating Secret Flower Sculptures came from Othoniel’s tenure as an Artist-in-Residence at the Gardner Museum during the summer of 2011, a tradition that honors Isabella Stewart Gardner’s belief in supporting artists in the process of their discovery, conceptualization, and creation of art. Since 1992, the museum has offered various artists the gift of time, and all of the Museum’s contemporary installations are done by Artists-in-Residence.

During his month-long residency, Othoniel discovered an 18th century book at the Boston Public Library called The Art of Describing Dance by Raoul-Auger Feuillet about ballet choreography and performances during Louis XIV’s reign in France.

The book, its drawings, and his time at the Gardner inspired him to draw concepts for three fountain sculptures, Les Belles Danses (The Beautiful Dances) for Versailles’ Water Theater Grove which opens May 12. As the first permanent contemporary sculptures in the Versailles gardens in 300 years, Othoniel won a competition with French landscape designer Louis Benech. This historical project will be shown, for the first time, in the U.S. The fountains are inspired by Louis XIV dance steps and several of the drawings made in Boston will be exhibited along two bronze models of Les Belles Danses. For the occasion, The Boston Public Library will loan Raoul-Auger Feuillet’s original book to the Gardner Museum.

Jean-Michel Othoniel lives and works in Paris. He began working with glass in the early 1990s after being introduced to some of the finest glassmakers in Murano, Italy. From 1996, he began creating artworks for specific places – hanging giant necklaces in the gardens around the Villa Medici in Rome and from trees in the gardens of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice. In 2000, he had an invitation to transform a Paris subway station into a double crown of glass and aluminum for his work, Le Kiosque des Noctambules. In later works for the “Crystal Palace” exhibition at the Fondation Cartier in Paris and MoCA in Miami, Othoniel made blown-glass enigmatic sculptures that resembled jewelry, architecture, and gigantic erotic objects. By 2004, he exhibited his freestanding glass necklaces at the Musee du Louvre, and by 2011, he had an important retrospective, “My Way,” at the Centre Pompidou in Paris which moved onto the Leeum Samsung Museum of Art/Plateau in Seoul, the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo, the Macao Museum of Art in China, and the Brooklyn Museum of New York.

His art has also been exhibited in various museums and galleries all around the world.

In addition to his upcoming exhibit in March, Othoniel assembled his own personal tour of the Gardner Museum. His passion for flowers and their meaning in art drove him to see the Museum’s collection like a meaningful garden. Drawings and pictures he made during his Artist-in-Residency are behind the creation of a new book, The Secret Language of Flowers. In this herbarium, Jean-Michel Othoniel explores the symbolic meaning of flowers in the Gardner collection and from other collections around the world.

“To exhibit Jean-Michel Othoniel’s work is a great honor in and of itself,” said Pieranna Cavalchini, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum’s Tom and Lisa Blumenthal Curator of Contemporary Art. “Having the sculptures installed on the gallery’s ceiling and on a rooftop reflects his ingenuity and vision as an artist but it also showcases the museum as a continually inspiring place to experience contemporary art in Boston.”

Anne Hawley, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum’s Norma Jean Calderwood Director, said it is gratifying to see Jean-Michel Othoniel come full circle as an Artist-in-Resident whose time at the Gardner lead to a major installation in Versailles and in Boston. “He is an example of how we perpetuate the legacy of our founder, Isabella, by supporting current artists and their work,” she said.

Jean-Michel Othoniel: Secret Flower Sculptures is made possible, in part, by generous support from Tom and Lisa Blumenthal, Chanel, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional support provided by the Consulate General of France in Boston.

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum • 25 Evans Way Boston MA 02115 • Hours: Open daily from 11 am to 5 pm and Thursdays until 9 pm. Closed Tuesdays. • Admission: Adults $15; Seniors $12; Students $5; Free for members, children under 18, everyone on his/her birthday, and all named “Isabella” • $2 off admission with a same-day Museum of Fine Arts, Boston ticket • Info Line: 617.566.1401 • Box Office: 617.278.5156 • www.gardnermuseum.org
The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum—a work of art in totality—is at once an intimate collection of fine and decorative art and a vibrant, innovative venue for contemporary artists, musicians and scholars. Housed in a 1902 building, modeled after a 15th century Venetian palazzo, and a 2012 wing, designed by Renzo Piano, the Museum provides an unusual backdrop for the viewing of art. The Collection galleries installed in rooms surrounding the verdant Courtyard contain more than 2,500 paintings, sculptures, tapestries, furniture, manuscripts, rare books and decorative arts featuring works by Titian, Rembrandt, Michelangelo, Raphael, Botticelli, Manet, Degas, Whistler and Sargent. Visit the Gardner Museum online at www.gardnermuseum.org for more about special exhibitions, concerts, innovative arts education programs, and evening events.

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