L’usage des jours
365 ceramic objects by Guillaume Bardet, designer

27.03 – 26.05.2013
Exhibitions

During the period from September 21, 2009, until September 20, 2010, the French designer Guillaume Bardet drew one object a day. As an extension of this «artistic and human performance», from fall 2010 he saw to the creation of each object. He did so in collaboration with fourteen ceramists from the Dieulefit region (Rhône-Alpes, southeast France), where he had settled in 2009 in order to flee the Parisian hullabaloo.

It took a good measure of determination, passion, enthusiasm and energy for Guillaume Bardet to become the hub of an alliance built up of individuals, companies, institutions and collectivities, all of whom agreed to join this human and creative adventure with him for an over two-year period. It also demanded a great deal of nerve and talent for the designer to bare himself, revealing not only his basic concerns and strokes of imagination, but also his weak spots, his doubts and his trial-and-error approach. And all this in order to uncompromisingly give their full due to his formal and aesthetic solutions.
Guillaume Bardet entrusted the scenography for this itinerant exhibition to his friend, the designer Vincent Dupont-Rougier, insisting nonetheless on a preconception whereby time passes very slowly (a one-year period) and very rapidly (that of a single day). And this by resorting to elements in the service of simplicity, structuring and narration, so as to bring to mind both linearity and profusion, families and uses, moods and fancies.
The exhibition also brings to light various phases of inspiration, the artist’s manner of working and his search for solutions. In the words of one of the ceramists involved, Guillaume Bardet found out how to «tell a story» and «seek out the lines» in each of the forms he had designed and observed taking shape in the artisans’ hands. This outstanding personal challenge entailed a nigh-to-monacal and introspective approach in 2009; it was followed by a more collegial phase in 2010, climaxing in the production of 365 brand new ceramic works. These have since been presented as the theme of a monographic exhibition of a new kind, shown at several museums and exhibition venues partnering this initiative. The mudac represents the last lap on the exhibition’s itinerary, which included Sèvres («City of Ceramics») in France (near Paris), Le Grand Hornu Images in Belgium, the Château des Adhémar (Contemporary Art Center) in Montélimar (France),
and the Maison de la Céramique du Pays de Dieulefit in 2012.
The publishing house Bernard Chauveau has published a catalogue that, beyond accompanying this exhibition, will serve as a tangible record thereof far beyond this presentation. The publication boasts 400 color illustrations, and is bilingual (French and English). Readers are treated to 365 ceramic pieces, as photographed by Pierre-Olivier Deschamps, and to complementary essays contributed by Lorette Nobécourt, Catherine Geel and Claude Eveno (ISBN 9782363060136, 55 €).
Thanks to this ambitious project, Guillaume Bardet and his ceramist colleagues were named the winners (Prix Dialogues) of the year 2011 Bettencourt Prize for the Intelligence of the Hand.

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