Ronan Bouroullec, Triptyque

In 2023, as part of the extensive programme of events celebrating its centenary, the villa Noailles invited Ronan Bouroullec to present three exhibitions: Dessins quotidiens (Daily Drawings), at the Hôtel des Arts in Toulon, Les mains à l’argile (Hands to Clay), at the Galerie du Canon, and Productions récentes (Recent Productions) within the villa itself, thereby deepening the long-standing ties of support and friendship that link the artist to the location – where he exhibited for the first time in 1998 – and to its director, Jean-Pierre Blanc.
The invitation took the form of a triptych, in other words, a proposal, a body of work, a discourse, a three-part project or, more precisely, according to the Larousse dictionary definition, a “work formed of three panels joined side by side. When mounted on hinges, the side panels form wings that can be closed over the central section.”
Dessins quotidiens (Daily Drawings)
This exhibition at the Hôtel des Arts in Toulon, from 4 March to 29 April 2023, showcased around 300 pieces, drawings produced over the five preceding years, bas-reliefs made since 2021, as well as a large collection of notebooks, spanning a far larger timeframe, some of them dating back several decades.
Les mains à l’argile (Hands to Clay)
The second section of the triptych, at the Galerie du Canon in Toulon, from 23 June to 5 November 2023, was also devoted to a single discipline. But unlike drawing, considered to be a global practice (even including, through the medium of the notebooks, the preparatory sketches for his design work, which are completely different in nature) and one spanning decades, the approach to ceramics for this exhibition was resolutely focused on recent years, even though Ronan Bouroullec has worked with this material since early on in his career, when he collaborated with potter Claude Aïello as part of the “Designers à Vallauris” commissioning programme in the late 1990s.
The exhibition therefore concentrated on a particular practice in ceramics, excluding the field of functional objects beyond the vase, which formed a type of cut-off point between form per se, which is almost sculptural, and utilitarian objects. A tighter focus, therefore, but one which, even so, made it possible to explore a wide variety of practices: the wall tiles (Pico and Rombini, then the Bloc bricks, in collaboration with Mutina since 2011), the vases (with Mutina in 2021, and Tajimi in 2022), the bas-reliefs created from 2021 onwards, and even, for the very first time, some new pieces presented as sculptures.
Productions récentes (Recent Productions)
Inaugurated like the previous exhibition during the Design Parade Hyères, “Recent Productions” was held from 24 June to 3 September 2023 in one of the most beautiful rooms at the villa Noailles, Ronan Bouroullec’s favourite for its intimate, domestic size, the beauty of its natural lighting, and its window overlooking an ideal landscape.
This exhibition, unlike the other two, was not guided by a typological approach in terms of an activity or medium, but provided an umbrella for three projects stemming from parallel and simultaneous approaches.
It brought together these projects in the adjacent fields of object design – the table lamp for Flos, the screens for Kvadrat – and of the project in situ – the design of the interior of the Chapel of Saint-Michel de Brasparts.
“I think, said Ronan Bouroullec, that what lies at the heart of my language is connected to the method of assembly, to the way in which the forms, planes, and materials come together.” Interview with the author, January 2023.