The French artist Jean-Michel Othoniel is celebrating 30 years of creation with a solo show at the New York gallery Emmanuel Perrotin (through April 15). For “Dark Matters,” he has created works that resonate with the space and drift toward poetry, such as “Grotta azzura,” a grotto (2 m x 2 m) made of blue glass bricks in which one can enter and stand. Obsessed with glass, Othoniel explores a new form of radicalism, with his seemingly monochromatic sculptures inspired by nature and his research on opacity.The year 2018 will also see him being honored with his third exhibition at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Saint-Etienne (France) and a major show at the Museum of Fine Arts in Montreal. He spoke to MODERN PAINTERS in his east Paris studio, where his major work to date, “The Wave,” takes on a whole wall of the hangar. (This interview is translated from the French by the writer.)Why have you been so obsessed with glass for so long? I discovered this material by accident in the 1990s. I was in residence at the CIRVA (International Research Center on Glass and Arts) in Marseille (France) to research alchemy with the ambition to transform pumice stone into obsidian, a black glass that’s totally opaque. It’s not at all seductive, as transparent glass is. When I began to see the glassmakers’ work, I was fascinated by their methods. I really wanted to work with them. That’s what took me out of the studio, and when I began to work with a team I decided I was ready to delegate the act of creation.Since then, the size of your works has increased tremendously!My first work ever, 30 years ago, measured exactly 6 centimeters by 4 centimeters, so effectively, yes, we can say so, as “The Wave” measures 15 meters long, 6 meters high, and weighs 25 tons! Maybe in 30 years’ time I will become obese! Even if for me it’s never a question of sizes, I had to make a choice at one point. My works became so complex, I had to settle down. After 15 years traveling around the world, discovering other cultures, and creating, my team had grown and so had the sophistication of my research. This is what brought me to Paris at the turn of the century to establish my studio. Since then, I have been able to work with my crew practically every day.Where did this idea of a giant wave come from?I had the opportunity to build a smaller one in Sète (France) for an exhibition that took place during the summer of 2017. But this one is out of control, it’s crazy. Nevertheless, I had it in me, I had to do it. Once again, size didn’t matter. This work was necessary. I think I badly wanted to confront that monster. This glass architecture, the volume it occupies, the space it takes, engulfs us. You are not facing an object, but something that eats you up. At the same time, it feels like you could almost get inside it. There is also an agora [open public space] aspect to it. Like the world we live in, it’s also quite paradoxical: it’s gigantic, but it’s made to be kept inside; impressive, but fragile. It’s glass, but it’s black. The wave is the place for opposites. A global work inside which you can observe that every brick, blown by mouth, is different. On each and every one of them, the movement of the glass varies. You can almost feel the waves of the blown glass. I like this trip back and forth between the details and the big picture.How long did this work take?It took me more than two years, including one year of drawing. Four people used a computer to calculate the position of each glass brick. They also had to calculate and develop the metal structures which they are all linked to. Behind, there is a kind of superstructure, like a spine, on which all these modules are fixed. Of course, the structure is self-supported, because you need both to be able to climb on it, and dress it up. It’s an incredible engineering feat in which I am deeply involved, also when it comes to discussing with the glass blowers who end up making the bricks. What I love about this wave, is the illusion it creates. It’s just a simple pile of glass bricks. But the bricks are hollow and in fact they’re not in contact with each other. They just seem to be floating above each other. This was actually the main challenge we had to face, because the wave only exists in negative at the beginning. In the end, it really gives this impression of lightness you expect from glass. But it would have been impossible to build it only with glass.What are the differences between a private project like this and sculptures that are in the public space, like in the Château de Versailles or in Paris?I consider each piece I work on, as just parts of one whole work. Each new project is nourished by my previous works. When in the public space, I’m interested by the relationship between the installation and its environment, with urbanism. Some pieces never leave my studio, others are conceived from the start with an architect, a town, to occupy a defined space. I quite like this substantial dialogue, very poetic in a way, with modern or historical sites. Creating a work is also about meeting people.How do you create? I draw, I do watercolors. Afterwards at the studio, I have a team of 12 people: architects, engineers, 3-D draughtsmen with whom I assess the production process. Together, we try to find a way of doing things, solutions for assembling and disassembling. Because “The Wave” has to travel! I really like to work like that at the studio and think collectively about the work’s lifetime. I am very close to the team I work with: I closely follow the metal and the glass work for instance. I know the techniques, the do’s and don’ts. My role is one of a delivering physician, a guide.Words seem to mean a lot for you, but does poetry mean even more?To me, writers are the closest artists to freedom. I am fascinated by this model of creation. A writer can create using only thoughts and words. On the other hand, there is the unwieldiness of my work. There is a force, a radicalness in writing. Hence, I also try to write. My sentences are brief, halfway between technique and poetry. In fact, my first works were conceived as three-dimensional poems, with found objects I would place next to each other just as if I were creating sentences in space. It’s also this poetry that makes my work authentically French. At the same time, it’s open enough to speak to the world.How do you feel when a work finally leaves the studio? It’s great when a work really escapes you. For example, the night-owl’s kiosk, on Place Colette in Paris, has its own life without me. He’s now 17 years old, he’s a grown teenager, he has met plenty of people and lived his life. A lot of people don’t know who the artist is, which is kind of thrilling. I regularly forget this work, but I’m always happy to cross its path from time to time. People respect this work because it symbolizes the idea of beauty in the city, because of its scale, and the quality of the materials we used. It’s like if they’d taken it over. And I like that. — This article appears in the March 2018 edition of Modern Painters.
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