horizons
Horizons
2023
Like glazes in oil painting, successive layers of glass give Horizons depth and chromatic richness. These glass screens invite us to look beyond.
Bandes Littorales
Bandes littorales
2023
« The rolling waves, the shimmering water seized me, and I began to cut, to cut the blue through the strip and breathe these movements, this symbolic memory, into the glass. »
Antoine Pierini
Murs vagues
Murs vagues
2023
These sculptures have a material, glass, and an immaterial part in reflection. When the waves emerge into the interior space, the walls seem to become blurred, the boundaries liquid.
Haute Lumière
Haute Lumière
2022
From below, the neon lighting is reminiscent of lightning, perhaps not surprising given that obsidian, a natural glass, is created by the impact of a lightning bolt. Haute Lumière, both literally and figuratively, urges a detached perspective, since the intent is not to worship idols any more than works of art.
Arbres-Repères
Arbres Repères
2022
When the remnants of temples leave still-standing pillars, nature often reclaims the chaos. The marble bases provide the foundations for these elongated creations redolent of the cypress, a tree symbolising immortality now found all around the Mediterranean. Here they stand around the labyrinth, but also rise up outside in the villa gardens looking over the sea. Totemic creations, like the milestones on a journey that rejects material barriers and the borders imposed by humans.
Pensée Tiède
Pensée Tiède
2022
The concept of Pensée de Midi (often translated as “Thought at the Meridian”) ardently opposes extremes but is by no means a Pensée Tiède, or “tepid thought”. This tongue-in-cheek bathroom installation shows the glass streaming towards the plughole, like lukewarm souls slipping into the wings of life’s great stage.
Mer Interieure
2022
Installation monumentale
The installation is an inner storm, a sea of emotions, a birthplace of tragedy and drama that nonetheless brings hope.
Mer Intérieure
Mesure
Mesure
2022
Installation
Here, we find a series of words flanking the statue of Solon, one of the founders of Athenian democracy: mesure (measure/moderation), démesure (immoderation/excess) and des mesures (measures). The neon writing echoes the line of thought espoused by Albert Camus in The Rebel: “Moderation, born of rebellion, can only live by rebellion.”
Après la Bataille
Après la Bataille
2022
Installation
After the war between men comes the war of the senses, those excesses of reason akin to inebriation of the soul. These are the themes that inspired the meeting of these three works. Pierini poured molten glass into the amphoras as if it were oil or wine, causing them to explode.
La Ligne et l'Angle
La Ligne et l’Angle
2022
Two meanders slip in between glass strips whose fates run parallel, only varying in length. Meanders are ornamental motifs common in Ancient Greece, perhaps reflecting the twisting nature of thought and the endless array of possible paths. This hanging piece invites visitors to weigh their sense of certainty before embarking on the journey.
L'Objet du Voyage
L’Objet du Voyage
2021
Installation
In stripping the amphoras of their utility-based purpose and replacing the opacity of clay with the luminosity of glass, Pierini has dreamed up a series of sculptures he calls Vestiges Contemporains. Inspired by the amphoras of antiquity, from Cycladic creations to their Byzantine counterparts, he has crafted pieces that resemble human figures. Here, they come to life through a video projected on their body in a moment of introspection ranging from quiet sea to stormy skies.
Lumière Intime
Lumière Intime
2022
“Inanimate objects, do you have a soul?” wondered the French poet Alphonse de Lamartine. Family cultures and Mediterranean influences converge in the belly of this sculpture, which has a twin in Mr°Reinach’s bedroom (Erotès). Amphoras, terracotta vessels with no initial value, take on a life of their own in glass and are transformed, magnifying Pierini’s focus on light and form. Suggestive of a human body or perhaps a bobbin, they also bring to mind the patience of Penelope as she knitted while awaiting Ulysses’ return.
Vestige Contemporain
Vestiges Contemporains
2022
Part of a large collection of anthropomorphic amphoras created by Antoine Pierini, featuring distinctive colours and materials. The handles are reminiscent of ears à la Max Ernst. This sculpture is a nod to the antique amphoras found in the library and the Triklinos.
Colonnes Roseaux
Colonnes Roseaux
2022
Pierini sculpts nature into symbolic forms. His Colonnes Roseaux are a tribute in glass to Constantin Brancusi’s “Endless Column”. They are a link between interior and exterior, between people and their surroundings, a correspondence conveyed by Le Corbusier. They stretch for the sky in alternating lengths and colours that embody a delicate deference.
On the Rock
On The Rock
2014
When lightning strikes, siliceous rocks such as those in the Mercantour Valley can transform into pieces of natural glass. A phenomenon that inspired Antoine Pierini to create this series of sculptures. From the trickling of stormwater to the boiling that heralds the passage from one state to another, these glass and stone sculptures evoke the metamorphoses of life.
Collines
Collines
2022
Pierini blew these abstract bubbles while dreaming of the desert dunes of Tassili N’Ajjer, creating pieces that also conjure images of water drops or cells, leading us to wonder whether they are littler or larger than their real-life counterparts. A mystery of scale that draws the mind toward both the immensely big and immensely small.
