Ronan Bouroullec exhibition at Centre Pompidou features ceramics and amorphous ink drawings

Throughout the Centre Pompidou’s permanent galleries, there are rooms entirely dedicated to major modern and contemporary artists: think Joseph Beuys, Victor Vasarely, Giuseppe Penone. And until 23 September 2024, Ronan Bouroullec.

Of course, Bouroullec is as much an industrial designer as a polyvalent artist, a prolific creator whose amorphous ink drawings and decorative ceramic wall structures suggest ongoing explorations of form and function.

Ronan Bouroullec presents 'Resonance' at Centre Pompidou

The presentation here, titled Résonance, follows his recent donation of some 30 works to the Centre Pompidou—Musée National d’Art Moderne. Of this selection, made between 2020-24, half are on display for the first time.

Within a single room, the mini exhibition plays out like a tight edit of ideas that have defined his own canon since professionally decoupling from his brother, Erwan.

'For me to be a designer is a question of empathy in different contexts,' Bouroullec told Wallpaper* during a recent visit to his Paris studio near the Canal Saint-Martin, where maquettes for past and future exhibitions filled the rooms. 'I’m happy to work with old Japanese craftsman and then the day after, to confront machines that can produce ten-thousand chairs. All of these techniques and people are like a palette of possibilities.'

From his words to the gallery floor: upon entry, the eye lands on a central podium that showcases his ceramic vases realised with Tajimi Custom Tiles, each a cylinder enhanced with dimensional squares and rectangles whose seamless assembly required particular know-how from artisans in Japan. They are filled with delicate sprigs of dried buds as though attesting to their purpose as usable objects.

His now-recognisable line drawings in vivid hues are staggered across two of the walls alongside a bas-relief that proposes a different materiality. Bouroullec’s ceramic lamps for Flos, released last year, are stationed along the far wall. Illuminated, they bring warm light into the space. Arguably the pièce de resistance is Adagio, an architectural-scale wall system whose bi-colour bricks are mounted in an intricate yet modular lattice. Placed underneath, his new, grid-like vases for Mutina offer a thoughtful juxtaposition.

The remaining wall comprises a range of Bouroullec’s body of work, including an undulating prototype screen in Kvradrat wool, a rack a steel candlestick – all featured in last year’s exhibition at Villa Noailles – as well as the pieces from the Issey Miyake Homme Plissé collection from January, in which his drawings and the label’s signature pleats fused into magnificent garments. Not even in store, this marks their first appearance in an institution.

While the room exudes a sense of calm and coherence, Bouroullec said he felt an initial ambivalence about reuniting what seemed like a disparate array of elements without context. 'What surprises me is that there is not a hierarchy,' he explained. 'So you have the imperfection, the perfection; the one-off unique pieces, the serial pieces; some things that necessitate a lot of attention, some less.'

What about the fact that Résonance represents both art and design, that one can be spontaneous and the other precisely planned? Bouroullec explained that they fulfil different whims and engagements.

'I’m someone intuitive and design has to be planned and shared. Consider the number of people involved; it’s like a movie production. And it can be very long and sometimes frustrating. But I like that also, the constraints. But then as I am someone who needs to think a certain way, drawing is, I won’t say the opposite but the protocol is very different. Drawing is a very simple kind of expression… I don’t want to prepare it, think about it. I refuse any goals. It’s not that I have a picture in mind.'

Bouroullec, who will debut new projects in Milan next week, noted that he is increasingly sensitive to how objects 'participate' in a space – hence the idea of 'empathy' in design. Making an analogy to a teabag in a pot, he said, 'If you consider this room, the atmosphere is consistent. The objects stretch in technique, in thought, in colour, and they produce an ensemble that, indeed, makes me feel at peace.'

Résonance continues at the Centre Pompidou until 23 September 2024.