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Genius Loci exhibition at Maison Bernard

By 30 May 2024May 31st, 2024No Comments

From 8th to 23rd June 2024, Genius Loci is taking over the Maison Bernard, a masterpiece of organic architecture from the 1970s, designed by Antti Lovag. The association is exhibiting the works of around twenty artists and designers, in a harmonious dialogue with the curves, imagination and picturesque setting of this remarkable site.

Maison Bernard – © Yves Gellie

Founded by curator Marion Vignal, Genius Loci is a programme of immersive exhibitions showcasing architectural heritage and contemporary creation.

In Théoule-sur-mer, the association is highlighting remarkable southern architecture. The Maison Bernard was born of the meeting of two personalities who seemed to have nothing in common. Pierre Bernard, an accomplished entrepreneur and businessman, and Antti Lovag, a visionary ‘habitologist’ on the fringes of his profession. Their meeting in the early 1970s marked the start of a major project to build a holiday home. After nearly a decade of construction, the house took shape: an ovoid structure with no right angles, its curved lines set against the arid, rugged landscape of the Estérel massif.

Maison Bernard – © Yves Gellie

Marion Vignal at Maison Bernard – © Damian Noszkowicz

The exhibition features plastic, sound and visual works that resonate with the ‘spirit of the place’ and continue the approach initiated by Isabelle Bernard to create original objects for the home.

Artists and designers play with the spatial, plastic and landscape components of the site to reveal its poetry, harmony and originality. Ceramics, textiles, sound installations and monumental works invite you to enjoy a total sensory experience.

Yves Gellie, Néon, 2019, Installation visuelle et vidéo © Yves Gellie/Fonds de dotation Maison Bernard

As an ode to nature and to the harmonious integration of the Maison Bernard into its ecosystem, an ephemeral installation has been created in partnership with the Villa Arson: this in situ creation, co-signed by Samuel Nguyen and students from the art school, places the project in an ecological context, through its strategy and its low-carbon operating mode (from design to post-exhibition reuse).

Visitors will also be able to discover the playful potential of organic architecture through a performance by choreographer Némo Flouret, ‘DANCE PARC: a playground project’.

Maison Bernard’s interior © Yves Gellie/Fonds de dotation Maison Bernard

Susanna Fritscher, Souffle, 2021, Cristal © Yves Gellie/Fonds de dotation Maison Bernard

Paul Armand Gette, 0m., 2015, Gravure sur verre © Yves Gellie/Fonds de dotation Maison Bernard

Isa Melsheimer, Larvae I, 2021, Céramique, émail © Courtesy Galerie Jocelyn Wolff

Isa Melsheimer, Metamorphosis (Antti Lovag, Maison Bernard), 2021, Céramique, émail © Esther Schipper

Genius Loci highlights confidential treasures of modern architecture, and exceptionally opens up these private places that are usually closed to the public, encouraging their discovery. Each exhibition breaks down the barriers between the arts and builds bridges between past and present, heritage and modernity. In this way, the association defends a unique way of bringing architecture to life through a human and intimate approach, which serves to reveal the profound identity of a work of art.

Némo Flouret at Maison Bernard © Damian Noszkowicz

From 8th to 23rd june 2024