At 4 rue des Crayères, in Reims, where Ruinart reveals its new setting after three years of work, hovers the shadow of Dom Thierry Ruinart. In the main courtyard, two interpretations of the Benedictine scholar face each other in a dialogue between past and present, like a renovation which combines buildings remaining in their original state and spaces entirely redesigned by the architect Sou Fujimoto, the designer Gwenael Nicolas and landscaper Christophe Gautrand. On the one hand, Daphné Du Barry, already known in Rémois for her Baptism of Clovis on the square in front of the Saint-Remi basilica, represented the 17th century scholar as a young monk of classical style, to whom the refined contours give a timeless aura. On the other hand, the Catalan Jaume Plensa delivers a futuristic piece in cast iron intertwining material and words. Her Dom Thierry Ruinart thus sees characters from eight alphabets – Arabic, Chinese, Hebrew, Latin or even Russian – welded together until giving them human form and echoing the universalist literary culture of its subject.
Here, Dom Thierry has symbolic value. It was undoubtedly he, recalls Fabien Vallérian, head of the Arts and culture department of Ruinart, who suggested to his nephew Nicolas to create the famous champagne house in 1729. Three centuries later, it continues to associate artistic creation with its effervescent activity, perpetuating a centuries-old lineage of aesthetes. Already in 1896, it was the first champagne brand to commission an artist to create a promotional poster. Alphonse Mucha, future star of Art Nouveau, set about it, not without being emulated in the small circle of the bubble. Today, around forty contemporary artists sign the 110 works distributed, inside or outside, in the spaces of the House transformed and enriched with a Sculpture Garden: 7,000 square meters reinvented by Christophe Gautrand to welcome within a vast plant palette, respectful of biodiversity, works of art in situ.
There, visual artists and sculptors, of different origins and generations, share a committed vision: a strong link with nature and the concern to raise awareness of the ecological issues of our era. Parisian Eva Jospin dialogues with the history and know-how of Ruinart in a Capriccio monumental made with cardboard, then counter-molded in plaster and resin, like a rococo madness which seems to have inhabited these lands for ages, destined to disappear little by little in the vegetation. This is already the case for the canopy-shaped chandelier suspended in the air by the American ecofeminist Andrea Bowers which, a few meters away, blends into the landscape.
The Nicolas Ruinart pavilion.
© / Matthew Bonnevie
Further afield, the Bavarian Nils Udo, pioneer of land art, designed a Rock giant, variation of its famous Nest. Carved from a local limestone rock, the cavity houses a marble shell, whose immaculate fragility recalls the century-old bottles preserved in the chalk quarries.
A stone’s throw from the deer antlers of Cameroonian Pascale Marthine Tayou, decorated with colored grapes in blown glass and the impressive device by Dutchman Thijs Biersteker, halfway between technology, interactive experience and plastic installation. Finally, let us mention the self-supporting root made from recycled pallets by the Brazilian Henrique Oliveira, which evokes an oversized vine stock. The room, all in scholarly undulations, sits in the main courtyard, a stone’s throw from the bronze and steel Dom Thierry.
.