Jean-Michel Othoniel - DAZZLING TRILOGY
- Date
- From 15.04.2026 to 06.09.2026
- Place
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Espace Louis Vuitton Beijing
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China World Mall South Zone W. Bldg. 1 Jianguomenwai Ave.
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Beijing
- Phone
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T. +86 216 1332 856
- Hours
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Open everyday From 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
SELECTED WORKS FROM THE COLLECTION
Marking the 20th anniversary of the Espaces Louis Vuitton and the 10th anniversary of the Fondation Louis Vuitton’s Hors-les-murs programme, the Espace Louis Vuitton Beijing unveils an exhibition which presents installation works by French artist Jean-Michel Othoniel.
After experimenting with photography, sulphur, and obsidian, Jean-Michel Othoniel encounters glass in 1996, a shift he describes as moving from “shadow” to “light.” Since then, glass has become the central medium of a practice grounded in collaboration with artisans and in a close engagement with material processes. Whether working within traditional craft workshops or contemporary technological environments, Othoniel embraces the unpredictable moments that arise through making moments, in which accident, gesture, and transformation shape the final work.
LÁGRIMAS, 2002
© Jean-Michel Othoniel, ADAGP, Paris, 2026. Courtesy of the artist and Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris. Photo credits: © Sun Shi / Louis Vuitton
Poetry and literature play a fundamental role in the artist’s thought process. Inspired by French psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, Othoniel conceives exhibitions as emotional and spatial compositions. His works draw on diverse references — from devotional objects and folk craft traditions to spiritual symbolism and personal memory — creating environments in which fragility becomes a poetic force rather than a sign of weakness. Regardless of scale, each piece embodies his ambition: to erect monuments to human fragility. Within these forms reside the key driving forces of his œuvres — poetry, history, beauty, and love.
The exhibition brings together works that reveal this breadth of references. In Lágrimas (2002), glass bottles filled with water suspend delicate forms that shimmer like tears, evoking spaces of prayer and contemplation. In Le Bateau de Larmes [The Boat of Tears] (2004), a small boat discovered on the shores of Miami (USA) becomes a tribute to migration and memory, crowned with luminous glass beads that transform tragedy into hope.
LE BATEAU DE LARMES, 2004
© Jean-Michel Othoniel, ADAGP, Paris, 2026. Courtesy of the artist and Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris. Photo credits: © Sun Shi / Louis Vuitton
LÁGRIMAS
© Jean-Michel Othoniel, ADAGP, Paris, 2026. Courtesy of the artist and Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris. Photo credits: © Sun Shi / Louis Vuitton
In the final room, two major works enter into dialogue. White Wild Lei (2009), a monumental necklace inspired by the Hawaiian gesture of welcoming strangers with flowers, evokes the sacred form of the mandorla and honours those who remain present through memory. Nearby, Rivière Rose (2026), a site-specific installation created for the exhibition, spreads across the floor like a luminous pink river composed of hand-cast glass bricks. Together, these works invite visitors into a contemplative landscape shaped by light, colour, and movement — an environment where beauty, in Othoniel’s words, has the power to protect itself.
Jean-Michel Othoniel
Jean-Michel Othoniel (born in 1964 in Saint-Étienne, France) is a contemporary artist based in Paris, France. In the mid-1980s, he studied at the École d’art de Cergy (France), where he systematically explored conceptual art and material experimentation. From this early period, he developed a keen interest in alchemy, transformation, and the poetic resonance of matter. Subsequently, through various residencies and grant programmes — most notably his pivotal residency at the Villa Medici in Rome (Italy) in 1996 — he expanded his artistic horizons, shifting from an intimate practice centred on books, manuscripts, and process-oriented his practice to a body of work responsive to urban, historical, and natural spaces. He has long maintained a studio in Paris, collaborating with master glassmakers, metalworkers, and engineering teams to propel his work from the studio into public spaces and international institutional venues within a cross-disciplinary context.
His œuvre consistently revolves around themes of desire, fragility, healing, and transformation. From the late 1980s to the early 1990s, he experimented with materials such as sulphur, wax, and lead — binding "books" — emphasizing time, trace, and the alchemical symbolism of matter. Following his encounter with the Venetian glass tradition in 1993, blown glass became his signature medium: transparency, mirror-like surfaces, and gemstone hues allow light and colour to be shaped, strung together into enlarged bead "necklaces," knotted garlands, and trellis structures, creating volumes that are both intimate and monumental. He gradually transitioned from small-scale objects to large public installations — suspended beads, fountains, and garden constructions, reinterpreting Baroque exuberance with contemporary clarity. Water, botany, and historical landscapes frequently serve as interlocutors; through modular repetition, mirror reflections, and mathematical structures, his works oscillate between ornamentation and monumentality, inviting viewers to experience "passage" and "rebirth" through reflection and traversal. Mirrors incorporate the spectator into the work, transforming the space into a theatre bearing emotion, memory, and movement.
Othoniel has held major solo exhibitions at the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain (Paris, France, 2003), the Centre Pompidou (Paris, France, 2011), the Brooklyn Museum (New York, USA, 2012) and the Petit Palais (Paris, France, 2021) among others. His landmark public commissions include Le Kiosque des noctambules (2000) for the Palais Royal — Musée du Louvre metro station in Paris (France), the gardens of the Château de Versailles (France, 2015), Le Théorème de Narcisse for the Petit Palais (Paris, France, 2021). In 2019, he created Alfa, a monumental installation of 114 fountain sculptures, for the new National Museum of Qatar (NMoQ), designed by French architect Jean Nouvel. His works are held in major institutional collections such as the Centre Pompidou, the Musée d'Art moderne de Paris (France), the Brooklyn Museum (New York, USA), establishing his international reputation for integrating masterful craftsmanship with public engagement, shaping a poetics of space through light and colour.
