During this interview, conducted in March 2022, an excerpt of which is published here, art historian and glass specialist Manuel Fadat opens a conversation with Antoine Pierini about the origins of his career, his family’s passion for glass, and explores the path that has led him to the works, accumulations and installations he now produces and presents in museums and institutions internationally, and more recently in the region at the Mougins Museum of Classical Art and today at Villa Kérylos.

Origins: The Studio Glass Movement

— Manuel Fadat: Hello Antoine. We agreed on the nature of this interview, or rather this conversation. Let us say from the outset that it is a way of contributing to the history of glass art by creating a resource, a way of entering into a discourse, a way of thinking, a sensibility, while also providing spatial and temporal reference points. To begin with, I must honestly say that I know relatively little about your work as we begin, which is actually rather exciting for me because we are going to discover it together and will certainly manage to bring out many elements that will interest enthusiasts, the curious, but also connoisseurs. I do not know the origins of your relationship with art, your approach, your deeper concerns, your aspirations, your inspirations, your symbolic, poetic or political messages, your creative and aesthetic processes. Of course, correlations can be drawn with other artists, contemporary or earlier, and I imagine there are certain influences or sources of inspiration, homages or quotations. Somewhere between formation and deformation, I could not help, sometimes perhaps too hastily, drawing connections, and with certain works, to Harvey Littleton, Xavier Carrère, William Morris, or glassmakers from Murano, which is by no means a value judgement, quite the opposite, I would say. What I do know about you, however, is that you spring from the thigh, not Jupiter’s, but Biot’s nonetheless, a place steeped in a particular history of glass to which the Centre du Verre Contemporain has contributed across two generations, while glass itself is a virus that has affected many members of your family. I also know that you are very active, deeply involved and determined, that you create many events and also take part in many others, that in your own way you work for the glass community by supporting artists and organising residencies, not to mention your travels to the United States for training and exchanges, which seem to be becoming increasingly frequent. We have also spoken a little about your work, and from that discussion I kept a few key words that I will give you exactly as they came to me. We spoke about the fact that you are particularly interested in the purity of forms, as a way of returning to the essence of things, but also in movement, material effects, accumulation, monumentality, and that you work through associations of ideas, that you have a desire to transmit, and that your works are often charged with multiple references, discoveries, phenomena or sensations, expressing the way you think, making use of powerful concepts or notions, including humanism. But we also spoke about your strong interest, even fascination, with Antiquity and the Mediterranean, which can notably be seen in your Contemporary Remains, presented here in this exhibition at Villa Kérylos. So there is a great deal to discuss… The first question is therefore always very open. It concerns origins and ultimately almost amounts to asking you: “how did you get here?”, “where do you come from, and how did you arrive where you are today?”.

— Antoine Pierini: First of all, I appreciate that we are starting from the fact that you do not know my work in depth, because that will make it all the more interesting to explore and explain it. As for the political aspect, the word resonates within my work in a subtle rather than frontal way. I like situations that awaken curiosity and encourage people to question things. I offer possible paths and then it depends on each person. A dialogue opens up. There is also the question of the references you mentioned, affinities or filiations, and I approach that with great humility. As far as the conceptual aspect is concerned, I do indeed seek a balance between meaning and form in my approach. Finally, regarding the glass community, yes, that is also true. I want to help things move forward, to share. It is a duty. But if we return to the first question, it was indeed: “what brought me here?”.

— MF: Exactly. Biot. I would like to hear your vision of the history of glass in Biot, the context in which you emerged, what made you connect with it, want to train, make it your profession, and how you arrived there. What are the origins?

— AP: I will get straight to the point. We are all the children of Eloi Monod. We are all connected to him, directly or indirectly. What is extraordinary about him is the way he revolutionised both the way people worked in the studio and the way the profession was presented. He opened the glassworks to the public, quite simply because glassmaking is spectacular. But the most important thing was the transformation he brought about within the workshop by breaking with traditional production codes. Your uncle Jean Louis Fayard, who managed Eloi Monod’s glassworks, overturned the assembly line method, which consisted of dividing tasks and had probably been established at the time to preserve expertise and prevent techniques from being leaked, a context that created hierarchy and power relations. He introduced production bonuses to motivate the workers, but there was no hierarchy based on technical expertise.

— MF: In this history, we also find your father and your uncle, Alain Bégou.

— AP: Yes, and my uncles! Robert Pierini, therefore, Alain Bégou, and Jean Louis Fayard, who was director of the Verrerie de Biot and later created the Verrerie d’Allex, known for its humanist and social dimensions.

— MF: How did they all end up there?

— AP: I cannot remember exactly who brought whom along anymore (laughs)! Jean Louis was director at the Verrerie de Biot, Alain Bégou came to work on the gas installations because that was his training, and my father arrived there relatively late as a kind of composer, a chemist if you like, before moving into glassblowing.

— MF: Because your father also worked with Lino Melano, from what I have heard, the mosaicist who worked with Fernand Léger, Chagall…

— AP: Yes, exactly, Lino Melano.

— MF: It was within this context that your parents later opened the Verrerie Pierini and then the gallery of the same name, in the year you were born, 1980. You were somewhat born into the profession.

— AP: Absolutely. As a child, I was surrounded by exhibitions and glassmakers. My parents carried me around between boxes and artworks, and I slept under the table on exhibition opening nights. I saw works by glassmakers, the children of other glassmakers, I listened to artists committing themselves, discussing their work, installing pieces, building furnaces, experimenting. Then I began simply by making my own marbles, which I would take to school to play with and often lose. Of course, I took a certain pride in them. I had fun making little inclusions of gold leaf and silver leaf. That brought me into direct contact with the material. For pleasure, as a game. Then, at around the age of twelve, I began making paperweights, and continued doing so until I was about eighteen. At around fifteen, I started making a few vases and bottles, although it remained very laborious. I was more comfortable with paperweights, which were a first taste of sculpture.

— MF: During the period when you trained with your father, did you work through imitation, or did you already feel drawn towards experimentation?

— AP: Both. When you work with and for someone, you follow in their footsteps, but at the same time you want to experiment. And because he let me do what I wanted with paperweights when I was a child, I already had a taste for adventure… At first you learn through imitation, but the calling is already there. To give you an example, we had a friend who was a waiter at Les Arcades, an intellectual, passionate about glass, who would come whenever he had a moment and experiment at whichever bench was free. Long before I decided to train properly, we were already conducting experiments, trying unusual forms, physical and chemical compositions, aluminium leaf, brass. And I did not know Marinot at the time! At first, I worked somewhat instinctively. But there are also important things to say about this period of “training”, and about what shaped me, particularly the importance of travel. We travelled through Italy by car when I was seven years old to find the village where my grandfather had been born. We would arrive in a village, look through the civil records, realise it was somewhere else, and set off again along the roads between Tuscany and Umbria. Fantastic.

— MF: So you are actually an Etruscan (laughs)!

— AP: Yes (laughs)! In any case, the name Pierini comes from that region. But we also went to Rome, Naples, Herculaneum, Pompeii. Then we made a second journey, to Greece, to Athens, and travelled throughout Crete. And I was simply amazed. I never wanted to leave the archaeological museums my mother took me to. I was fascinated by the shapes of the vases, the objects. And I have always had this taste for ancient things, for archaeology, for history. That is also why I absolutely loved the work of William Morris when I discovered it during our trip to Seattle, and why later I was fascinated by the power of Arman’s work.

New Horizons, Journey to Seattle

— MF: How old were you? And why did you go specifically to Seattle?

— AP: Fifteen. The story is rather amusing. First, some American glassmakers came to Biot. They visited the studio and got on very well with my parents, even though my parents did not speak English particularly well. Mark Eckstrand was one of the first, then David Bennett, who was going to study with Pino Signoretto in Murano and stopped in Biot on his way back. Unfortunately, he and his wife had everything stolen. So my parents gave them somewhere to stay, lent them money, and they later invited us in return. We stayed for a month. And let me tell you, that was the turning point! I discovered Dale Chihuly, we visited the Boathouse, and as I mentioned earlier, I was completely captivated by William Morris’s work, particularly the Canopic pieces with doe and stag heads, and his vessels depicting prehistoric scenes. For my first time in the United States, the American dream worked completely on me. It was the era of Michael Jordan, hip hop, and so on.

— MF: So this aesthetic shock was what made you decide that you wanted to create with glass?

— AP: I think it is fair to say that this journey was a catalyst.

— MF: A slightly unusual question, but one that makes sense to me. At that age, did you imagine yourself more in the direction of Morris, Chihuly, your father? Or did you want to embrace everything?

— AP: I had preferences. I was very impressed by Chihuly’s monumentality, but Morris’s work seemed exceptional to me. His universe is extraordinarily rich, he has an extraordinary sense of staging, a poetry. He is an artist with a vision, and he brings his team of creators along with him. It is magnificent. There is something deeply humanist and universal about it, two notions that I try to convey in my own work. His themes are powerful, he worked with both figuration and abstraction, and the light and presence of his works are very strong. I also try to do everything I can to push creation further, and to share.

— MF: You reinvest part of what you earn into supporting glass art. It is a beautiful approach. What matters is contributing to the dynamism and evolution of creation in glass…

— AP: Yes, that is exactly it. Inviting creators, sharing what we make, giving people the opportunity to create. It is a fantastic community. I have made extraordinary journeys, had equally extraordinary encounters, and I have always been warmly welcomed. I think the people within this community have genuinely made choices about how they want to live. It is a commitment to a passion. Broadly speaking, we face fairly similar issues. That is why there is such a connection within the glassmaking community. Unfortunately, we no longer have the luxury of remaining passive.

— MF: You mention the environment, so let us talk about Francine, your mother, her commitment and her influence.

— AP: The further I go, the more I realise just how important her role has been. She passed on to me a love of culture, civilisations, Antiquity, humanism, but also this love of nature. She grew up on a farm in the mountains of the Drôme, in direct contact with nature. She lived through the Second World War, and her parents were members of the Resistance. My mother is nature and resistance. I grew up with that state of mind. She belongs to sixteen environmental organisations, sits on eleven boards of directors, and is a conservation officer with CEN PACA, the organisation that protects fauna and flora throughout the Région Sud. She helped have 182 hectares in Biot and Villeneuve Loubet classified as a Natura 2000 area… she fights for air and water quality, and also to have an exceptional archaeological site in Biot listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, knowing that beneath our feet here lies an ancient supervolcano, meaning that the subsoil is rich in hidden geological treasures. I even have my membership cards thanks to her! I follow all of this closely, I listen, we talk about it, it affects me, it stays with me.

— MF: You can certainly sense it, yes, especially once you have met Francine! It percolates, it seeps into your work, consciously, unconsciously… at every level! She put you in touch with and enabled you to hear the upheavals, tremors and rustlings of the world, the mysteries of nature!

— AP: You speak of mysteries, which brings us back to a pagan imagination. But yes, that connection is there. My mother is almost like a witch, she watches over nature, she is connected to it, inhabited by it…

— MF: That is a beautiful way of speaking about her. Let us pick up the thread of our discussion, if you will. There is already a tool in place, the glassworks and the gallery, you are around twenty years old, there is a foundation, a history, influences, references. You do not yet have the extraordinary hindsight that would allow you to understand everything you are doing, but you decide, you act, you throw yourself into it, you move forward, you explore… how did the transition take place between the moment you committed yourself to it and the moment you decided to continue the adventure of the gallery?

— AP: I first became my father’s principal assistant. I had always seen him making massive sculptures, from the 1980s onwards, alongside his production of decorative art objects. Then, for more than six months, he made no pieces of his own and spent all his time teaching me, gathering glass, handing me the blowpipe, guiding me. During that period, I therefore made pieces to improve my skills and eventually developed a body of work. That is how I had my first exhibition at a gallery in Cologne in 2001, where I sold almost everything, which launched me and made me want to continue. Then I assisted my father over the following years, carrying out more and more stages each time, until I was capable of making almost all of his pieces from beginning to end and knew most of what he himself was capable of doing. At the same time, he gradually gave me more and more time for research and discovery. He taught me beautifully, “by ear”, like certain flamenco guitarists. He helped me develop my sensitivity and my instinct, even though some questions remained unanswered. But there were quite a few things that I was not necessarily doing properly from the very beginning of a piece, which I understood when I went to Pilchuck in 2010.

— MF: So you completed your training abroad. That journey must have been extraordinary. Was it the first time you had trained elsewhere?

— AP: Yes and no. I had also gone to Sars Poteries for a fusing and casting workshop with Udo Zembok and David Reekie. Interesting. But I have to say that in the United States, I felt a very particular energy. I felt carried, supported, connected.

First Sculptures: The Apesanteurs

— MF: So at that time, what were you creating?

— AP: They were decorative art objects inspired by nature, landscapes and floral motifs. Then, in 2002, I began working with massive sculpture, intuitively, exploring, making fairly aggressive saw cuts into the sensual mass of the glass. I liked the idea of contrasts. Then, for quite a long period, I drew a great deal, and that eventually led me to the Apesanteurs. At first, the idea was simply to create abstract sculptures with bands of colour appearing to levitate, vertically or horizontally, within a transparent mass, creating something contemplative. It took me two years to find the little technical trick that allowed me to apply them. Then I began developing them with wave forms and more movement. Through repeated failures and continued work, I found forms and results that interested me. As soon as I was able to move away from what my father was doing, I did. As soon as I could free myself from folded drapery effects, I did… The objective is always to find the path, the one that suits you, the one that enables you to evolve, move forward, pass through stages, express your ideas. I have always wanted to move towards sculpture and installation, and that is what I do today. I would also like to explore glass panels, what the Americans call “panels”, since becoming more interested in the work of Hans Hartung, Anna Eva Bergman and Mark Rothko…

— MF: After the Apesanteurs came the Collines?

— AP: Yes, the Collines.

— MF: How did that story begin?

— AP: Well, twice my mother travelled to the Sahara, and I cannot remember why, but I was never able to go with her. When she came back, she opened her luggage, showed us what she had found, her photographs, talked a great deal, and she made us travel from Biot. Wonderful. Today, it is too dangerous to go there. Through the way she spoke and through her images, she managed to make me feel the desert, the vastness of the sand, a certain approach to infinity. And what was striking was that sand, those soft forms constantly being redrawn. At first, I really wanted to represent the sand, the rises, the reliefs, the drapery, the patterns. But very quickly I moved towards concave and convex forms, from a less realistic perspective. That is when I realised it was more interesting to work with forms of different volumes that could fit together, to modulate them, to work with accumulation and move towards installations. And through the cumulative effects of materials, and through colour, I was able to create a kind of perpetual movement. In the end, the elements enter into dialogue, there is a connection, an interaction between the parts that create a coherent whole. These notions of movement, interaction, connection, combination, installation, accumulation and material effects are really strong guiding lines in my work. A common thread. And a certain purity.

— MF: There is light as well. You work with the light that caresses the forms, volumes, curves, passes through or grazes the surface, the material effects, the colour, that reveals grains and textures, that creates contrasts which precisely reinforce this impression of movement. The word “Impressionist” comes to mind. I would even speak of percept in this specific case. The work is made alive by all these combined effects, and conveys this idea of the desert, allowing us to feel the wind, the light, the perpetual movement… Another question follows from that. Art history? The history of forms? From decorated caves or even earlier, the first symbolic behaviours. Do you dig into all that? Do you research, read books? Do you delve into it for inspiration?

— AP: Research and reflection occupy a major place in my creative process. It can take me years to bring a project into being, to refine my thinking, but there is also intuition, which leaves room for greater spontaneity, as well as my stylistic and formal orientations. The Reed Columns, for example, took me four years. Four years to resolve everything and find the right balance. I wanted them to be presented indoors and outdoors, monumental, modular, working through accumulation, with variations in material and chromatic effects. At first, there are always barriers, you lose a great deal of time over technical and design issues, you look for the right metalworker, the right diameters, the right proportions… The thinking becomes more precise at the same time. Now, with experience, I have far fewer technical barriers, which leaves more and more room for what I want to say. Major artists who shaped modern art drew inspiration from other civilisations, like Brancusi. For Endless Column, he drew inspiration from forms from Asia or Africa following the famous anecdote with Duchamp about the aesthetic purity of a propeller.

On The Rock and Fundamental Forces

— MF: One could say that you find a balance between your universe, your desires, your methodology, technique, resources… Speaking of universe, I would like us to talk about another series called On the Rock. What do the On the Rock works, which combine a mineral with a synthetic material, represent? How did the idea arise?

— AP: It came very simply. To begin with the combination itself, I met a geologist through discussions with my mother, and he told me about natural glasses. Of course, I knew obsidian. But learning that glass existed naturally in different forms made me extremely curious. So I attended all his lectures, invited him here, even bought a few fulgurites, and we talked. I understood that lightning strikes could produce glass. For example, if lightning strikes and cooling happens very slowly, you may obtain quartz crystals. If it cools quickly, you obtain glass. And little by little, the desire to say something about these relationships between lightning, rock and glass returned.

— MF: How did you work with On the Rock?

— AP: I would pour glass directly onto the rock and also incorporate inclusions, particularly metal. I also experimented with colour treatments or material effects. For me, these combinations are clearly a metaphor for the transformation of matter. And then there were many small stories that I was telling. Light blue evoked torrents of icy mountain water, and when I used rough cutting, it was to show how powerful these torrents are, the force of the current, and so on.

— MF: But actually, beyond the combination of stone and glass, which served as a support for expressing an idea, you are saying that these works were a metaphor for the transformation of elements and for movement, I am repeating your words, and that they were filled with numerous micro narratives. There is something demiurgic about it. On a small scale, and with your own means, you recreated what happens on a monumental, metamorphic scale, if we can put it that way, when things are on fire, in motion, reacting, exploding. Ultimately, were the On the Rock works something like the memory of telluric activity?

— AP: There is a very strong connection with the Vallée des Merveilles, which we know well, and its petroglyphs! There are many interpretations, and I do not want to pretend to be a specialist, but it is a place where humankind inscribed its relationship with the cosmos. Some people even consider it a kind of vast observatory, and it is also a place marked by lightning. But it is also mystical and mythological, because some believe it was the home of primordial deities, the Bull God, maker of storms, and the Earth Goddess… which the engravings may also represent… And you absolutely have to visit the Vallée des Merveilles museum, it is fascinating!

— MF: So you draw upon these great foundational narratives, upon these things that fascinate you and exceed us, as they have always fascinated human beings, lightning, fire, and you draw inspiration from local cultural and geological heritage to nourish your work. They are almost contextual works, then!

— AP: Yes, absolutely, I feel that all of this passes through me, it is part of who I am. Just as archaeology and the Mediterranean led me towards the Contemporary Remains. But since we are talking about contextual works, you should know that I did a residency at the Museum of Glass in Tacoma in 2014, essentially around the On the Rock series. I even received compliments from Walter Lieberman, one of the pioneers of the Studio Glass Movement. In any case, I also worked by rooting the project in its context. Mount Saint Helens erupted in 1980. For two months, people were on alert. It was terrible. It changed people’s lives. It changed the landscape. The entire cone exploded. We went into the eruption zone and although we were unable to hike, we were still able to collect rocks to create works. The museum kept some of them. One was sold and another has been on display for several years. This relationship with volcanoes, fire, lightning, these natural forces that dominate us, is really something that moves me deeply.

— MF: Very poetic. And before moving on to the Contemporary Remains, perhaps we can mention the Ivresses?

— AP: With the Ivresses, I wanted to move away from the idea of the utilitarian object, to divert it from its primary function. I began with the idea of transmission. When you create, as far as I am concerned, the idea is to transmit something, or at least to propose something. I push this idea so far as to say that when you find the right balance between form, effects, colours, material and so on, a work can place you in an altered state. Baudelaire and Nietzsche spoke about this kind of intoxication. So I played with form and content, signifier and signified, and I wanted to produce an installation that would optically generate a form of intoxication through accumulation, movement, material effects and so on.

Amphorae and Contemporary Remains

— MF: Let us move on to the Contemporary Remains, which inherit from the Ivresses and represent the culmination of almost twenty years of experiments, relationships, encounters, and also of your passion for the Mediterranean, travel, archaeology, geology and natural history… If I am not mistaken, as we discussed yesterday, the memory of the Biot jars lives on in your Contemporary Remains. Is it a tribute, a symbolic act of preservation?

— AP: It began with an awareness, then developed into a body of work centred on the emblematic object that is the Biot jar, found as far away as the United States and the Caribbean because, among other things, it preserved drinking water for longer than wooden barrels. From there, the work gradually shifted towards the amphora, whose iconic and symbolic power is extraordinary. So yes, the memory of the Biot jar survives within the amphorae. The amphora carries an immense wealth of meaning. In a way, it is more universal than the Biot jar. Countless variations were produced all around the Mediterranean. And then the amphora is ephemeral. Once it had served its purpose, it was often broken and reused in walls or as fill. Amphorae are found beneath the ground of virtually every ancient city… Some are anthropomorphic, some elongated, others rounded. They symbolise the connections between civilisations throughout the Mediterranean basin. They are objects that enabled exchange and communication. They take us back to Antiquity, a period rich in discoveries and advances in every field: writing, mathematics, science, medicine, philosophy, astronomy and navigation. They remind us of everything that emerged through the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Arabs and so many others. And when one observes the journeys made by amphorae, one naturally thinks of the different cultures, the different points of view, of conflict as well as mutual enrichment, and above all one moves beyond a purely Western centred perspective. Finally, amphorae unite rather than divide, and that is important to me. They also become the support for the major themes of my practice: humanism, universality, culture, adventure and travel… They carry messages. They are bottles cast into the sea. And if I may venture a little further, this is also a body of work in which the influence of some of my spiritual masters comes together, such as Arman through Atlantis: The New Atlantis and his concept of the archaeology of the future, and Brancusi through the purity and minimalism of his forms.

— MF: They stand at the “Crossroads of the Labyrinth”, if I may borrow that title somewhat freely and turn it into an expression, allowing myself a small allusion…

— AP: Yes, it is a beautiful expression. And naturally, continuing what I was saying, there are all the projects that grow out of previous reflections and concerns, forming a continuous thread. Travelling through the Mediterranean is a way of speaking simultaneously about nature, humanity, but also humanity’s impact, and of reflecting on what I myself produce as a human being. Beneath it all lies a political questioning, because what is the Mediterranean today? Is it open? Is it closed? Is this natural space under threat? Without addressing these issues directly, we speak about those who risk their lives fleeing their countries, those who die, those whom we refuse to welcome. We speak about conflict, domination, and naturally also about pollution, while always keeping in mind the imaginary world that the sea can generate. It is all of these things at once. That is what the Mediterranean is. The amphora has been, and still remains, a poetic way of speaking about travel, the sea and humanity, while opening the door to other, existential questions.

— MF: The sea, which is both constraint and freedom, a symbol of perpetual transformation, Paul Valéry’s “sea forever renewed”… But we can also speak of life and death. For some, it evokes fate, destiny, or something else entirely. In any case, the subject is open and immensely powerful. What speaks to me is that each series becomes an opportunity for you to embrace a subject, to unfold it as you wish, to expand it, multiply its references, think it through and share it. Each work becomes a crystallised facet of your reflections… And, to borrow a nautical expression, these are less series than the rounding of successive capes. It is often said that works of art allow artists to set out in search of themselves…

— AP: Glass itself is just as much constraint as freedom (laughs)! Embarking on a project is also a form of risk, which I rather enjoy. As I was saying, my projects aim to evoke the human condition, our ways of living and our impact on nature, while avoiding prejudice, simplistic conclusions or consensus. Above all, what I seek is to provoke debate.

The Exhibition at Villa Kérylos

— MF: To provoke debate… I’ll pick up on that, because I would like us to talk about the exhibition you are presenting at Villa Kérylos. You are working with the place, on the place, within the place, with its genius loci. The exhibition brings together different temporalities, references to Antiquity, the Mediterranean and contemporary art, while also embracing existential, social, formal and aesthetic dimensions. It will become, precisely, a place of questioning and debate. One can see this exhibition as a crucial event, a point of convergence, even as a monumental in situ work that negotiates with the spirit of the place. I would like you to tell us about it, and explain how it represents your here and now. Can you tell us about its origins, its story, what you are presenting, what encounters you are creating, and the themes you are exploring?

— AP: Being able to inhabit a place as prestigious, and as deeply connected to my universe, is immeasurable. The Villa is not a reproduction, but a re-creation of an Ancient Greek residence, equipped with all the modern comforts of 1908. It brings together different temporalities, and in that sense it is very close to the way I work. I immediately wanted to create a dialogue with this place, to draw inspiration from it, to listen to it, to create works as though they emerged from it, as though they had been generated by the place itself. For example, the Villa stands on a rocky promontory, and part of it is built over the former customs path, now enclosed and fitted with a large window against which the sea crashes. The sea even rises into this space through the drainage channels, which is fascinating because it enters the Villa, and the Villa and the sea live together in perpetual movement. I therefore wanted to create an installation of glass waves, Inner Sea, composed of different forms, textures and dimensions… an evocation of this extraordinary encounter. All of the installations are conceived according to this same principle, drawing upon archetypes: here the sea, there light and the sun, then vegetation, and naturally the amphorae, which for me crystallise the very spirit of the Mediterranean. My idea was to create a series of amphorae in variations of white. Opaque, translucent, transparent. Then I wanted to project moving images onto them. The aim was to provoke introspection, to immerse the viewer in a universe, in an inner journey. By projecting images of the changing states of the sea, calm, rough, turbulent, raging, images of the abyssal depths and images of the sky, I propose a symbolic voyage. The shadows cast by the amphorae are highly present, deeply striking, anthropomorphic. They recall Cycladic art… they are the positive weight of the past, they are heritage.

— MF: Yes, exactly. One thinks of Cycladic figures, but also of those marble Star Gazers from Chalcolithic Asia Minor that I discovered recently. They possess something hieratic. They keep watch. And then these amphorae appear throughout the exhibition, arranged differently from one space to another, telling countless stories. One of the installations composed of amphorae is entitled After the Battle. Could you tell us about it?

— AP: There is a quotation by Albert Camus in Helen’s Exile that is particularly important and guides this installation: “O thought of midday, the Trojan War is fought far from the battlefields.” It is the ideological and philosophical war against nihilism. That is my starting point. In truth, I allowed intuition to guide me. I wanted to speak about war, but we are also in the room dedicated to Dionysus, to Mediterranean joyful knowledge, to excess and intoxication. Here we arrive at the end of either a battle or an orgy. We stand among the fragments of shattered amphorae, gathering the remains.

— MF: We are left stunned among these ruins, and we begin to think. In a sense, it becomes reflective. You do not provide answers. You create the conditions for meaning to emerge. You allow interpretations to arise.

— AP: Exactly. I do not want to define. I want it to remain polysemous. I use the amphorae I originally created for the Archaeological Museum of Antibes in 2016, and I destroy them by pouring molten glass over them. Then I recompose new works from these newly created remains of jars and amphorae.

Camus and Mediterranean Thought

— MF: There is also a certain violence… What does that violence express? Is it existential? Is it something within you? Is it the world you live in?

— AP: I carry a great deal of anger, of outrage, of a sense of injustice. We kill, we keep killing, beyond anything imaginable, both individually and collectively. In the end, why? Why such a degree of nihilism? I find myself very much in the writings of Camus, Thierry Fabre and René Char, those who contributed to the emergence of Camus’ concept of Mediterranean Thought. For me, it is one truth among many, one possible path. It may seem idealistic, some would say utopian. For me, it is a source of inspiration. We are living through a turning point. One crisis follows another. Political, social, climatic, economic, industrial. Perhaps, standing among the ruins, it is time to reflect.

— MF: From the ruins of excess, from this chaos, life and thought may re-emerge. You still have enough chaos within you to give birth to dancing stars, to paraphrase Nietzsche. In your view, even within the darkness, there are still fireflies that survive, to paraphrase once again Pasolini and Didi-Huberman. Beyond these ruins there are also those amphorae traversed by light, by neon, more intimate, more spiritual. Is this rebirth?

— AP: These works can also be seen as violent, pierced by spears of intense light. The neon traces trajectories, different life paths or the trajectories of different civilisations that intersect and become connected. I see them as the Mediterranean soul. The amphora as metaphor, exchanged, shared, traded, then touched, filled, nourished, enriched by different peoples. It is the West and the East intermingling. To me, these amphorae are alive.

— MF: Crossings, encounters, hybridisations, métissages… these are defining characteristics of your work. The place, the amphorae, the neon, the way they are arranged, all these signs dance together, tell a story and convey a message, often one of hope, as in the installation Solar Lines. Here, light becomes a positive force in the face of ignorance.

— AP: Absolutely. I use the light of glass as materia prima. In the face of the absurd and of injustice, sunlight represents knowledge, understanding, joyful knowledge in this case. It is a tribute to hope. There is a connection between light and commitment.

— MF: I am reminded of Habermas, who more or less says that we must reconnect with hope, whereas others would argue that hope is the leash of submission. One can clearly see this solar thread emerging throughout your work, this determination to believe, this commitment, this desire. Ultimately, your works become signals for yourself, visual notes, reminders. You place your ideas before yourself in a particular form. They become symbolic acts, symbolic behaviours, and when you place them before us, you think of them as living, as active. In that sense, they are also a form of sympathetic magic. They vibrate. They remind you that you are alive, and you exhibit them before us so that they may remind us that we are thinking beings… they become landmarks… and, indeed, one of your series is entitled Landmark Trees. Could you tell us about them?

— AP: That is exactly how I see them, as acts, symbols, objects that create connections, things that bind, landmarks. Landmark Trees are a hybridisation, a reflection. I went through the remnants left by a stonemason friend of mine. I used stones from Spain, Italy, Tunisia and Egypt. They are offcuts, discarded pieces, which I ask to be worked into friezes or flutings that evoke the remains of ancient monuments. It is the same principle as with the ruins. The remains become the matrix of a rebirth. The idea is simple, but essential to me. One civilisation disappears, but others are born. Humanity disappears, nature reclaims its place.

— MF: Memento mori?

— AP: Yes. And from a formal and aesthetic point of view, I feel very comfortable with these vertical forms, just as I do with the Reed Columns. These remains are civilisational, philosophical and historical landmarks. Points of convergence to which we can hold on. The new landmark would be harmony with nature. At the very least, striving towards that harmony.

— MF: We have spoken about the works and the way they inhabit the place while also being inhabited by it, about their poetic, symbolic and philosophical dimensions. But if you had to summarise the fundamental issues running through this exhibition, what would you say?

— AP: The central idea of this exhibition, which we have entitled Dreaming the Mediterranean, is, to me, a celebration of love. It brings together wonder, questioning, contemplation, introspection, the absurd, hope and Mediterranean Thought. Like everything I have created in recent years, it is deeply influenced by the thought of Camus. With Camus, there is a cycle: love, the absurd, revolt, love. That is what has accompanied me. And then there is purity, in the writing, in the choice of words, in the ideas. When I think of this immense author, I think of the precision and balance of his style, and I try to draw inspiration from it in my own visual language.

— MF: Camus sustains you in existence. You walk in his footsteps, and his spirit permeates the entire exhibition…

— AP: I have been incredibly fortunate to exhibit in a place so perfectly aligned with my universe. I like my work to be connected to places that hold meaning for me, and to create in response to those places. I dreamed of exhibiting at the Archaeological Museum of Antibes. I dreamed of exhibiting at the Mougins Museum of Classical Art, which I have now done. I dreamed of exhibiting at Villa Kérylos, and I dream of exhibiting in Naples, Athens or Sicily, for example. I would also love to exhibit in Beirut, an extraordinary city, paradoxical and immensely powerful.

— MF: A solar and Mediterranean journey, guided by an open, humanist vision of the world, and your works are its expression, its allegories… You are a creator, an artist. You transform matter, you transform ideas. Your sculptures become mnemonic and aesthetic catalysts. You are driven by extraordinary energy, by a powerful desire to create, to make, to invent, to push further, to collaborate… Could you tell us about the projects that are currently stirring within you, about the challenges and perspectives that lie ahead in terms of research and creation?

— AP: In a way, much of what we have just discussed already answers that question, at least regarding this creative ferment. At the moment, as an artist, I am entirely devoted to this exhibition, because it brings together everything I love doing and everything I believe I will continue to pursue in the years ahead. Bringing things together, articulating them, collaborating, generating. Bringing this exhibition into being, one that spans different temporalities and is itself a creative process, already means opening the door to the future. So I intend to remain in the present, to continue, then move on to what comes next while allowing myself the necessary time to absorb it, at the right pace, at the pace of the olive tree. To work on the human condition. To think about bringing people together rather than dividing them. To remain standing. To commit myself to projects that carry meaning.

— MF: This exhibition is fertile ground. You cultivate the soil, you plant, you let things germinate… everything is in gestation, and you will let it unfold to discover how to care for the trees…

— AP: I would say that I manage things as best I can, between my aspirations, my realities and my frustrations… For example, I would love to take the time to immerse myself once again in Nietzsche, Freud, René Char and Paul Valéry. Literature and philosophy are essential to me. But I also never lose sight of the pleasure I take in creating in response to places, which is precisely what is happening now, and I know this is what I want to continue doing in the near future. Museums, foundations, galleries, gardens, houses, historic sites…

— MF: And now, your own place… Here too everything is in motion, experimenting, inventing, constantly evolving, constantly transforming. You promote the work of other artists, organise events, strive to develop a strong cultural programme. How do you see the future? What are the forces at work? What are the prospects?

— AP: This place means an enormous amount to me, as we have already discussed. I was born here, I grew up here, I have watched it evolve. From a workshop, it became a workshop gallery, then the Centre du Verre Contemporain, dedicated to international contemporary glass creation in all its forms. Over the past few years we have become even more deeply committed, always driven by the desire to share and to energise the field. It is a place that collaborates increasingly with other institutions to promote the art of glass. We have strong ties with Pilchuck, with Tacoma, and with the remarkable individuals who lead those institutions, whose commitment is one we deeply recognise. We welcome artists in residence and place our facilities, equipment and expertise at their disposal. In doing so, they discover other cultures, other ways of living and other ways of working. We are actively involved in major projects such as the Biot International Glass Festival in Europe, we contribute to projects across the Atlantic, we welcome artists, we travel abroad, we build bridges. It is an open place. It is a place that creates connections. Above all, it is a profoundly human place.

Manuel Fadat
Art Historian and Glass Specialist