Fondation
d’entreprise
Hermès
Artists’
residencies 2014
Jennifer Avery
Clarissa Baumann
Lucie Picandet
press kit
Artists’ residencies
Carte blanche for visual artists
working at the heart of the Hermès workshops
The Fondation d’entreprise Hermès is launching a second three-year cycle
of artists’ residencies at the Hermès workshops. Each year, three young visual artists
mentored by leading figures on the contemporary scene will create new works
drawing on the skills and expertise of artisans working with leather, silver and silk.
Since 2010, the Fondation d’entreprise Hermès has invited young visual artists mentored by leading figures
on the contemporary scene to discover the exceptional artisan skills practised at the Hermès workshops in France.
The annual programme gives artists complete creative freedom to devise and produce new works using
the finest materials (silk, leather, silver, crystal) in collaboration with the workshop artisans. Each residency
is a unique creative adventure, challenging artists to re-locate their practice in a completely new context.
Funded by an accompanying bursary, each residency begins with a period of immersion in the life of the workshop,
enabling the artist to familiarise his – or herself – with the different trades practised on-site, through the gestures,
vocabulary, tools and techniques that are specific to each. In the second, creative phase, the artist develops his or her
project, which is subsequently assessed for feasibility. Finally, the production stage focuses on the making of the
finished artwork in situ at the workshops, drawing on the artisans’ precious skills and expertise.
Two examples of the work are produced: one remains the sole property of the artist, the other enters the collection
of the Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, for display at the workshops and worldwide. The first cycle of residencies
ended in 2013, with an exhibition of the sixteen works created over the first four years of the programme.
Entitled Condensation, the show was presented first in Paris, before touring to Tokyo and Seoul.
The Foundation has appointed three new mentors for the second cycle, each a leading figure on the international
contemporary scene, with a strong commitment to support emerging artists through their teachings at major art
institutes. The three mentors are French artist Jean-Michel Alberola and Belgian visual artist Ann Veronica Janssens
(both teachers at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France), and American sculptor
Richard Fishman, a teacher at Brown University, Rhode Island, in the United States.
• Richard Fishman is mentoring Jennifer Avery (USA, b.1983)
in residency at Holding Textile Hermès in Bourgoin-Jallieu.
• Ann Veronica Janssens is mentoring Clarissa Baumann (Brazil, b.1988)
in residency at the Puiforcat fine metal workshops in Pantin.
Cover: Photo Tadzio © Fondation d’entreprise Hermès
• Jean-Michel Alberola is mentoring Lucie Picandet (France, b.1982)
in residency at the Hermès leather workshops in Pantin.
Artists’ residencies 2014
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France / Bourgoin-Jallieu
Jennifer Avery
at Holding Textile Hermès
From workshop stitching to a solitary performance
Mentor Richard Fishman
Pupa, Poubelles, Bêtes
(‘Pupae, Trash, Beasts’)
Production: September - December 2014
Jennifer Avery is a 31-year-old American visual and
performance artist living and working in Providence,
Rhode Island. Following an early career in music,
Avery returned to her fine art studies at Brown
University in Providence, where she met her residency
mentor, Richard Fishman.
Jennifer Avery’s residency was hosted by the Société
Nouvelle de Confection at the Holding Textile Hermès
workshops in Bourgoin-Jallieu, near Lyon. Hermès
scarves (the celebrated carrés) and ties are hand-stitched
at the site, which also produces design prototypes.
Drawing on fairy tales, poetry, philosophy and Gothic
novels, Jennifer Avery’s work expresses a powerful,
feminist message, and a fascination with paradox: glamour
and the grotesque, joie de vivre and the macabre, eroticism
and innocence. Dolls are central to her work: their making,
and their role in play or performance artworks.
Profoundly marked by the workshop’s noticeably female
environment, and fascinated by her discovery of a hitherto
unknown continent and region, Avery chose to focus
her residency on the symbolism of Little Red Riding Hood
and the transition from childhood to adulthood, when
(once upon a time) little girls learned to sew and be
ladylike, while confronting their sexuality with varying
degrees of pleasure and acceptance.
Photo Tadzio © Fondation d’entreprise Hermès
Jennifer Avery made a daily tour of the Holding Textile
Hermès site, collecting fabric off-cuts for her work.
She devised and jet-printed her own motifs, and showed
remarkable physical and emotional commitment to
the project, working tirelessly with the artisans to stitch
and assemble an impressive corpus of dolls: busts, small
figurines, even a life-size figure moulded on the artist’s
own body. The resulting ‘patchwork of fragmented
identities’ is inspired by the Little Red Riding Hood story,
and the figures of Grandma and the ‘Beast’.
The hand-stitched silk bestiary provided the supporting cast
for two performances in a ‘dolls’ shop’ setting – an intimate,
fictional narrative with Avery as a strange, disconcerting
saleswoman, captured by a photographer whose prints
will form part of the final installation.
Jennifer Avery’s generosity of spirit, her exuberance
and dedication touched her co-workers deeply.
For the young women artisans, the residency
was an unforgettable experience.
‘My life in France, and my work, overlapped into a paradox,
a performance, and a feminist action. A patchwork of fragmented identities,
a path of pins or needles, a sublime fairy tale, a tactile decadence.
Our collaborations are performing objects — a critique and a celebration
of the performance of eros and femininity. Because of this, perhaps
more than anything else I am interested in empathy.’ Jennifer Avery
Artists’ residencies 2014
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France / Pantin
Clarissa Baumann
at Puiforcat
Precious metal and the challenge of immateriality
Mentor Ann Veronica Janssens
With a keen awareness of the role of gesture in everyday life
and work, Clarissa Baumann creates understated but intensely
committed performances using minimal means and materials,
in urban or cultural settings. Certain works are documented
in photographs or on video. Her multi-disciplinary approach
is reflected in her residency at the Puiforcat workshops.
Photo Tadzio © Fondation d’entreprise Hermès
Cuillère, Sphère (‘Spoon, sphere’)
Production: December 2014 - March 2015
Brazilian artist Clarissa Baumann (b. Rio de Janeiro, 1988)
studied visual and decorative arts in Rio de Janeiro and
pursued a professional career in contemporary dance,
before enrolling at the École Nationale Supérieure
des Beaux-Arts in Paris (2014), where she worked
in the studio of Ann Veronica Janssens, her mentor for
the residency with the Fondation d’entreprise Hermès.
She lives and works in Paris.
Clarissa Baumann is the third artist-in-residence
at Puiforcat in Pantin. Founded by Émile Puiforcat
in 1820, the family business specialised first in cutlerymaking, then expanded into fine metalwork in the late
19th century. Puiforcat grew and developed further under
the influence of Jean Puiforcat in the 1920s and 1930s,
before becoming part of the Hermès group in 1993.
Exploring the scope of the gestures performed by
the Puiforcat smiths, and the finesse of their raw material,
Clarissa Baumann proposed two projects for artisans
at the site, each testing the physicality of the artwork to
its limits. The first is based on a contemporary, rigorously
simple tablespoon from the Virgule collection by Nedda
El Asmar for Puiforcat. In collaboration with the artisans,
the spoon was gradually stretched and elongated using
the machines, tools and traditional techniques practised
at the workshop. The result was a slender silver thread that
ultimately reached 15 metres in length, to the astonishment
of all involved (the expected maximum length was around
2 or 3 metres). Fixed to a wall or rolled around a bobin,
the thread will feature in two performances: stretched out
and manipulated by two people, holding it close to their
ears, the thread creates a barely-audible sound, a residue
of the vibrations and gestures employed to make it.
The second project is the production of a perfect silver
sphere – the smallest of its kind that can be made by hand.
The piece was inspired by the artist’s observation of
silver dust produced by a silversmith working with a file,
vanishing into the creases of the hand or the workshop
floor. Artisans offered their own solutions for the making
of the sphere, based on their particular trade and skills
as polishers or chasers, burnishers, smiths, embossers,
planishers, or engravers. At a performance marking the end
of the residency, each artisan was invited to describe his
or her method, passing the barely visible sphere from hand
to hand until – perhaps – it disappeared altogether.
‘Metalwork has been central to mankind’s material culture for thousands of years.
And so, for me, working with metal constituted a challenge: does a metal object
bear a physical memory? What catalogue of gestures transforms it? My residency
at the workshops proposed an inverse archaeology of the object and the everyday
work of the artisans, a methodology in the form of a kind of game.’ Clarissa Baumann
Artists’ residencies 2014
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France / Pantin
Lucie Picandet at the leather
workshops in Pantin
An image of infinity, in leather marquetry
Mentor Jean-Michel Alberola
Qui me soit chair
(‘Flesh of my flesh’)
Production: January - March 2015
Lucie Picandet (b. 1982) lives and works in Paris.
She studied theology and philosophy before completing
a thesis on the aesthetics of film at Université Paris 8.
She met Jean-Michel Alberola – her mentor for the
residency at the Pantin leatherworks – while studying at
the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
Photo Tadzio © Fondation d’entreprise Hermès
The Maroquinerie de Pantin is chiefly devoted to the
production of signature bags from the house of Hermès.
The leather stores and the cutting studio produce the
pattern cuts for a range of models (small leather goods,
bags, belts), while the repairs workshop (housing Lucie
Picandet’s temporary workplace) focuses on after-sales
maintenance.
Lucie Picandet is especially interested in the relationship
between the body and the work of art. The support
or surface of her works is cut through, stitched back
together or repaired with elements of sculpture or
embroidery. Lucie Picandet explores beyond painting,
seeking to reach back through the picture surface to
the primordial image – a quest that reflects her profound
interest in spiritual symbolism.
Picandet’s Pantin residency represents a powerful
engagement with these core issues: her project is focused
directly on the use of skin given a second life by the
tanning process, and the adoption of a powerful, figurative
and allegorical image. Qui me soit chair (‘Flesh of my flesh’)
is a work on a palpably human scale (a tondo measuring
180 cm in diameter), featuring a leather marquetry motif
inspired by ancient Egyptian civilisation, which saw death
as a necessary stage in the process of resurrection. Enfolded
one inside the other, in an ambivalent relationship that’s
both sensual and violent, a woman and a crocodile form
an ouroboros associating love with death, infinity and the
regeneration of the soul.
The first stage of work involved the elaboration of the
piece’s form and motif, and its digital deconstruction
into flat sections of coloured leather. Working in close
collaboration with the leather-cutters and two specialist
workers from the repairs workshop, Lucie Picandet made
a careful selection of the skins to be used (goat and calf),
dictated by their final colour and texture. The skins were
then split or thinned and strengthened using workshop
techniques, before being precision-cut with fine water
jets and assembled on a wooden chassis. The finished
work is designed for wall display, like a leather picture.
‘I began with the idea of taking a gouge to stacked layers of leather,
like digging out a path to death. Then I saw the leather marquetry work produced
at the workshop, and I realised that these flat, puzzle-like images could contain
as much depth as the furrows I had planned to hollow out. And so I found what it was
that interested me most in the medium of leather: this perfectly flat surface, where lines
governed by subterranean forces come together in relation to one another.’ Lucie Picandet
Artists’ residencies 2014
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Artists’ residencies with the
Fondation d’entreprise Hermès
Second three-year cycle,
in progress: 2014 – 2015 – 2016
first cycle 2010 - 2011 - 2012 - 2013
Mentors
Jean-Michel Alberola
Ann Veronica Janssens
Richard Fishman
Mentors
Richard Deacon
Susanna Fritscher
Giuseppe Penone
Emmanuel Saulnier
Artists • 2014
Lucie Picandet
at the leather workshops in Pantin
Clarissa Baumann
at Puiforcat
Jennifer Avery
at Holding Textile Hermès
At the end of 2015: launch of the
Cahiers de Résidence – co-published
by Actes Sud and the Fondation
d’entreprise Hermès.
The Cahiers de Résidence / Notebooks attached
with a wide band size: 20 x 25.5 cm. Paperbacks
with bilingual French/English flaps. Free DVD.
Each residency is documented in a
publication – a Cahier de Résidence –
co-published by Actes Sud and the
Fondation d’entreprise Hermès.
Artists • 2010
Benoît Piéron
at the Holding Textile Hermès
Elisabeth S. Clark
at the Maroquinerie de Sayat
Simon Boudvin
at the Maroquinerie des Ardennes
Olivier Sévère
at the cristallerie Saint-Louis
Written by Élisabeth Védrenne and
Clément Dirié, the Cahiers retrace
the creative, personal and shared
adventure of the sixteen young
artists welcomed into the Hermès
workshops from 2010 to 2013. Each
Cahier is accompanied by a portfolio
of photographs by Tadzio, captioned
by the concerned artist, together
with a documentary DVD produced
by Jean-Paul Boucheny (No One
Production).
Artists • 2011
Marine Class
at Puiforcat
Émilie Pitoiset
at the Maroquinerie de Pierre-Bénite
Atsunobu Kohira
at the cristallerie Saint-Louis
Sébastien Gschwind
at the Maroquinerie de Saint-Antoine
Artists • 2012
Félix Pinquier
at the Maroquinerie de Belley
Olivier Beer
at the cristallerie Saint-Louis
Oh You Kyeong
at Puiforcat
Andrés Ramirez
at the Holding Textile Hermès
Condensation exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo, 2013 © Marc Domage
Artists • 2013
Marie-Anne Franqueville
at the cristallerie Saint-Louis
Gabriele Chiari
at the Holding Textile Hermès
Marcos Avila Forero
at the Maroquinerie Nontronnaise
Anne-Charlotte Yver
at John Lobb
In 2013, work produced during
the first four years of residencies
was seen in public for the first time
at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris, in an
exhibition entitled Condensation,
curated by Gaël Charbau.
The show toured subsequently,
to Tokyo (Le Forum, from March 19
to June 30, 2014) and Seoul
(the Atelier Hermès, from October 2
to November 30, 2014).
Artists’ residencies 2014
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press images
High-Res images of Jennifer Avery
available for download at
www.fondationdentreprisehermes.org/presse
Password available on request
Caption: Photo Tadzio © Fondation d’entreprise Hermès
Artists’ residencies 2014
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press images
High-Res images of clarissa baumann
available for download at
www.fondationdentreprisehermes.org/presse
Password available on request
Caption: Photo Tadzio © Fondation d’entreprise Hermès
Artists’ residencies 2014
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press images
High-Res images of lucie picandet
available for download at
www.fondationdentreprisehermes.org/presse
Password available on request
Caption: Photo Tadzio © Fondation d’entreprise Hermès
Artists’ residencies 2014
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mentors 2014 – 2016
Jean-Michel
Richard
Alberola
Fishman
Ann
Veronica
Janssens
Jean-Michel Alberola, La sortie est à l’intérieur, 2009
© Atsushi Nakamichi / Nacása & Partners Inc.
Courtesy of the Fondation d’entreprise Hermès.
Work created with the support of the Fondation
d’entreprise Hermès.
Born in 1953, Jean-Michel Alberola
made his name in the early 1980s
with the return of figurative art and
Cultivated Painting. His artwork
has been on display at the Musée
du Louvre in Paris (2005), Musée
d’Art Moderne in Saint-Étienne,
Musée des Beaux-Arts in Nancy
(2008), Bibliothèque Nationale de
France (2009) and Maison Hermès
in Tokyo (2009). His latest film,
Koyamaru, portraying a remote
village in rural Japan, was shown on
the Arte television channel in 2011.
His work has recently been featured
in a variety of exhibitions including
Mathématiques, un dépaysement
soudain at the Cartier Foundation,
Néons at La Maison Rouge and
Les Maîtres du désordre at the Musée
du Quai Branly (2012) as well as
Les Aventures de la vérité at the
Fondation Maeght in 2013. The Palais
de Tokyo in Paris is holding a major
retrospective of his work in 2016.
© All rights reserved
© Patricia Mathieu
Born in Folkestone (UK) in 1956,
Ann Veronica lives and works
in Brussels (BE). Her work has been
shown in numerous solo exhibitions:
“Serendipity”, Wiels - Centre d’Art
Contemporain, Brussels (BE),
“Are you experienced?”, Espai d’art
contemporani of Castellò (ES),
Museum Morsbroich, Neue
Nationale Gallery, Berlin, Kunstverein
München (GE), Musée d’Orsay,
Paris (FR), CCA Wattis Institute,
San Francisco (USA), Ikon Gallery,
Birmingham (UK), Mac Marseille
(FR) and Kunsthalle Bern (CH), etc.
In 2015, several years after their joint
project for the Venice Biennale,
artists Ann Veronica Janssens
and Michel François were invited
by curator Guillaume Désanges
to create a new joint work for the
Hermès art space La Verrière,
in Brussels.
Richard Fishman is a sculptor and
designer whose work is represented
in numerous private and public
collections including the Hirshhorn
Museum and Sculpture Garden
and the B’nai Brith Museum
in Washington D.C., the Rose Art
Museum, Brandies University,
and the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology. Over the course of his
career he has had 27 one-person
exhibitions, more than 50 group
exhibitions, and is the recipient
of many awards including
a Guggenheim Foundation
Fellowship. Fishman is a Professor
of Visual Art and Director of the
Granoff Center for the Creative Arts
at Brown University, where he
has been instrumental in creating
interdisciplinary initiatives and
courses exploring the connections
between the arts, science,
and technology.
Artists’ residencies 2014
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The Fondation d’entreprise Hermès supports people and organisations seeking to learn,
perfect, transmit and celebrate the skills and creativity that shape and inspire our lives today,
and into the future. Guided by our central focus on artisan expertise and creative artistry
in the context of society’s changing needs, the Foundation’s activities explore two complementary
avenues: know-how and creativity, know-how and the transmission of skills.
The Foundation supports partner organisations across the globe. At the same time, we develop
and administer our own projects in the contemporary visual arts (exhibitions and artists’ residencies),
the performing arts (the New Settings programme), design (the Prix Émile Hermès international
design award), craftsmanship (the Skills Academy), and biodiversity.
The Foundation’s unique mix of programmes and support is rooted in a single,
underlying belief: Our gestures define us.
www.fondationdentreprisehermes.org
press CONTACT
FONDATION D’ENTREPRISE HERMÈS
Philippe Boulet + 33 6 82 28 00 47
[email protected]
International Press Director
Hermès International
Ina Delcourt
Press contact
Annelise Catineau
+33 1 40 17 48 07
[email protected]
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75008 Paris