The Corning Museum of Glass’ GlassLab design programme will be taking place in Paris, at Musée des Arts Décoratifs, and will be featuring French designers including Francois Bauchet, Matali Crasset, Sylvain Dubuisson and Arik Levy.
Expanding the international reach of its signature design programme, The Corning Museum of Glass is bringing its GlassLab design programme to Paris. The Corning Museum will partner with the Musée des Arts Décoratifs to offer free, public GlassLab design ‘performances’ with top French designers in the Tuileries Garden/Paris, 22-27 October from 11:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. each day.
Designers who will work with GlassLab at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs are a mix of fashion, graphic design and product designers include Antoine et Manuel, François Bauchet, Wendell Castle, Matali Crassat, Sylvain Dubuisson, Benjamin Graindorge, Constance Guisset, Arik Levy, Vanessa Mitrani and Didier Tisseyre. On 22 October, Marco Mencacci from the Ecole Camondo of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs will work with Corning Museum glassmakers in a day-long preview session.
A programme developed by The Corning Museum of Glass in 2007, GlassLab helps designers better understand the possibilities of glass as a design material, encouraging them to design more innovatively for the material. The designers will bring their sketchbooks and concepts and work side-by-side with glassmakers in a unique mobile hotshop developed by The Corning Museum of Glass. The teams will prototype their design ideas in live glassblowing sessions, allowing audiences to watch the evolution of the designs as they are created.
“GlassLab has successfully provided designers from a variety of backgrounds with rare access to the glassmaking process, inviting them to explore firsthand the full potential of glass as a material for design,” said Dr. Karol Wight, executive director of The Corning Museum of Glass. “We’re pleased to partner with the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, which has one of the finest glass collections in France, to offer this programme for the first time in Paris. Our work with these contemporary designers builds on the very rich history of glass design in France.”
“We have a rich tradition of partnering with The Corning Museum of Glass on glass research and exhibitions. After learning about this unique educational project which the Museum held at the Domaine de Boisbuchet and other venues, we were very pleased to host the first Paris sessions of Glasslab with a select group of French designers and creators. It’s ideal to be held in the garden of the Louvre and during of the famous art fair, the FIAC,” said Jean Luc Olivié, curator of the glass collection Musée des Arts Décoratifs.
GlassLab programmes have taken place at major art and design fairs, workshops, and museums in Europe and the United States such as Design Miami/Art Basel, Vitra Design Museum and Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, New York (at the museum and on Governors Island).
More than 60 international designers have worked with GlassLab including Harry Allen, Yves Béhar, Constantin and Laurene Boym, Peter Buchanan-Smith, Stephen Burks, the Campana Brothers, Nacho Carbonell, Sigga Heimis, Max Lamb, Chris + Dominic Leong, Abbott Miller, Ted Muehling, Leon Ransmeier, Massimo Vignelli and David Wiseman.