CONSTANCE GUISSET DESIGN, ACTIO !. LES ARTS DECORATIFS

from 14 November 2017 to 11 March 2018

From 14 November 2017, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs is giving carte blanche to the designer and scenographer Constance Guisset for a retrospective of ten years of creation. “Constance Guiset, Actio !” invites us to explore the creative universe of an artist who in only a few years has become one of the major figures of French design. Constance Guisset is known for the eclectic and poetic nature of her creations and the fields she explores are indeed wide-ranging: design, scenographies for exhibitions and the performing arts, architecture, installations and videos. Her work transforms our perceptions, creates illusions and awakens emotions.

Constance Guisset is proposing an immersive experience divided into two sections, the first focusing on her scenographic creations, the second on her design work. Deployed over a surface area of more than 1,000 square metres in several galleries of the museum’s permanent collection, it takes us through her flagship creations to her most recent works, revealing her creative process. Actio! emphasises both the magical aspect of her creations and the willpower and creative mobility required to conceive objects and give them a real existence. It also evokes the theatrical and cinematic dimension of the scenographer’s work.

Each room is entitled by a verb denoting action and evoking the life, uses and intentions of her objects and installations. This lexicon broadens her objects’ horizons and incites us to look further than merely their functions and uses. These room titles are accompanied by manifestos revealing the designer’s intentions in her work. The exhibition also features collaborations with artists working in a variety of other disciplines…………………………

The first part of the exhibition, focusing on scenography, is set in the Middle Ages galleries, where Constance Guisset has used innovative procedures to highlight emblematic works in the museum’s medieval collection. In doing so, she has created a dialogue between her own creations and the museum’s collections, “conversations” in the literal sense between ancient and contemporary objects and also acoustic installations interpreting works. These interventions become objects in their own right and also act as signage elements, indicating the path to follow and works to contemplate. This comparison between historic pieces and Constance Guisset’s designs is achieved by her reuse of installations previously experimented with and re-adapted in situ.

The second part of the exhibition, focusing on Constance Guisset’s design work, features all the objects published over the last ten years and numerous creations never previously shown. It begins by questioning the purpose and interpretation of objects and the limits of design. Is design a question of creating sensations, of drawing forms, leaving one’s mark on a place or living in a space? This second section begins with two successive rooms directly questioning the object’s uses and status. The following room, focusing on her work process, leads into a long corridor evoking the mental process and inspirations preceding creation. Next, six thematic rooms feature objects illustrating a particular theme: turning, taking flight, freezing, etc. The final room focuses on her decors for the performing arts. The importance of words, central to the exhibition, is emphasised throughout by the graphic designer Agnès Dahan………

http://www.lesartsdecoratifs.fr/en/exhibitions/forthcoming-events-1365/musee-des-arts-decoratifs/constance-guisset-design-actio/