Carpenters Workshop Gallery I Paris presents the collective exhibition "Cabinet Makers' from 18 May to 26 August 2017, an exhibition that pays homage to the origins of design and demonstrates the Avant-Garde of the designers. 

 

"Since settling down, man has felt the need to surround himself with furniture, the silent servants of everyday life, and this affirmation allows us to note its necessity. Furniture has transformed over the course of time, for

our needs and uses. The art of beauty enriches its forms and aspects.

The starting point was the chest, a storage unit, a carpenter’s work. From Florence, Venice and the Middle East, arrived the ebony and ivory marquetry work, crowning the cabinetmaker’s reign. The surface of the furniture became the base of artistic creation, painting, and reliefs, marquetry work made from hard rock, scales and copper bronze applications. According to the times, new typologies appeared: commodes, double-bodied dressers, armoires, corner cabinets, secretary desks, chiffoniers, fall front desks (cousin of the secretary desk), cylinder desks, buffets…

Time has passed, but the ‘Cabinet makers’ exhibition confirms the renewed interest in home pieces, and for new research and innovation. In this 21st century debut, the exhibition willingly returns to the excellent quality of the ‘haute-ébénisterie’ (high-end cabinet maker), a search for durable investment, for communicable furniture. The pieces presented in the gallery revisit similar techniques and add bronze, entering further into the realm of sculptural art. They invent the contemporary development baptised ‘collectible design’, produced in limited editions.

The image of the atelier has changed, and Carpenters Workshop Gallery offers its artists an ultra-modern laboratory in Roissy which houses exceptional works, where specialized teams work in wood and its finishing, metal (bronze, aluminium, steel), textiles…

The exhibition presents different typologies of furniture, in which the form, however renewed, never eclipses the function of the piece."

 

TEXT BY ANNE BONY