POETIC LIVING

Jean-Michel Othoniel

Over the course of 40 years, the French artist Jean-Michel Othoniel has developed a multifaceted practice that moves between drawing, sculpture, and installation, expanding in scope while remaining, with remarkable dexterity, always in close dialogue with nature and architecture. The scale that at times pays homage to the “artisan man” and at other times turns to the infinite cosmos manifests itself collaboratively, as different forms of knowledge blend together and materialize in “sculptural jewels.”

It is a fusion of knowledge, techniques, and anthropological intentions that underpin Lina Bo Bardi’s very architectural practice – a convergence of lived experiences and critical positioning that turns her buildings into shelters for brutally honest ideas. For both artists, the construction complements the object itself in affirming its symbolic clarity, a method the artist describes as “emotional geometry.”

For him, this feeling became more clearly expressed from 1993 onward, when he began collaborating with master artisans from Murano and explored the technical possibilities, the subtlety of colors, and the transparency of glass to convey a state of enchantment with the world. Simple shapes such as cubes and spheres are arranged in chains and stacks that put our distorted sense of space into perspective – micro-architectures made of glass bricks captivate our gaze, while enormous necklaces adorn something greater; a nature that is almost immeasurable.

A relationship of proportionality that substantiates Lina Bo Bardi’s very intention with the Glass House – an architecture that rests delicately upon the terrain and pays homage to the landscape; expansive glass planes that incorporate the forest into modern architecture; the blue glass-tile flooring that extends the sky and illuminates the interiors. These interiors are marked by the symbolic fusion between the pragmatic, the sacred, and the popular within the intellectual dynamic shared by Lina Bo Bardi and Pietro Maria Bardi.

These improbable parallels converge in a happy coincidence for the “Poetic Living” exhibition to take place at the Bardi Institute/Glass House precisely as the 75th anniversary of its construction is being celebrated. Jean-Michel Othoniel’s works reflect, in their brilliance, a tangle of solutions and memories present here, while expanding the visitor’s own experience through the reopening of the path to Lina’s workshop (after years closed to visitors), where they will be able to see the unprecedented “Liseron”, in stainless steel, and a series of Murano glass lamps in the same line as the solitary vases that already inside the house dialogue with the Bardi’s own historical collection.

Among other previously unseen creations are the installation “Tribute Easels to Lina Bo Bardi” – a set of five easels inspired by the iconic solution for MASP, constructed from hand-blown glass blocks, on which watercolors depicting flowers from the garden itself “float”; as well as a massive sculpture from the “Mirror Necklace” series, made of stainless steel and gold leaf, leaning over the tree in the central void of the room, at the heart of the House. Rounding out the exhibition is a set of “Midnight Souls” stools, distributed throughout the interiors in harmony with the permanent collection of furniture and art, as a natural evolution of this collection built over 40 years of the couple’s life together.

Service: Poetic Living – Jean Michel Othoniel

Support: Simões de Assis

Opening: May 30, 2025 | Free admission 11:00 AM to 4:00 PM

Casa de Vidro Rua General Almerio de Moura, 200 – Morumbi

Visiting hours: May 30 to July 11 Thursday to Saturday: 10:00 AM, 11:30 AM, 2:00 PM and 3:30 PM

Tickets: https://casadevidro.byinti.com/