The concept of transparency is at the core of this training led by artists and sculptors Sébastien Gschwind and Emmanuel Saulnier. The duo will guide participants through a shared yet individually tailored reflection.
By the end of the training, participants will have assimilated:
Transparency, Design, and Reception.
Transparency is more than a mere physical property; it is what connects every artistic project to its conception and reception.
Artists and sculptors Emmanuel Saulnier and Sébastien Gschwind place the question of transparency at the core of this training, using a broad, multidisciplinary, and multi-material approach—from glass to iron, wood, and water.
This is also about a «material of exchange.» Economy, ecology, poetry, and politics intersect in this conception as freely as possible.
Each participant will engage in collaborative work with both artists and the entire group, starting from the definition of their own project; the culmination will be a presentation at the end of the training.
The aim is to work openly. This principle immediately reveals the nature of each participant’s gesture, resulting in a personal and plural project.
Outdoors, every artwork is, in any case, an exchange between oneself and others—transparency, alterity, circulation, and presence.
Emmanuel Saulnier is primarily a sculptor, with an ongoing dialogue with drawing in his work. While glass is his preferred material, the artist explores the potential of materials broadly. His work engages with issues such as collective memory, presence, and disappearance.
Titled "Black Dancing" and organized into three parts, Emmanuel Saulnier's exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo invites the visitor to activate, through their presence, the unique rhythm of each work or group of works. The first space, covered with pieces of asphalt from a public construction site, contrasts with the darkness, while the second space is vast and well-lit.
Through "Round Midnight," a new body of work specifically created for this exhibition, the artist pays homage to Thelonious Monk's jazz standard of the same name. Referencing the pianist's famous improvisational style, the sculpture breaks free from constraints to become a free and spontaneous gesture; it transforms into a drawing in space, on the scale of the venue. Poetic connections are established between the transparency of glass and carved wood, asphalt, and dried ink, the darkness of which reflects the night of the soul.
Sébastien Gschwind is a sculptor born in 1973 in Alsace, at the crossroads of Switzerland and Germany. He graduated from the National School of Art in Nancy, where he studied from 1993 to 1999. His artistic practice is diverse, often delving into the fields of architecture, design, and performance. He worked at the Polymago graphic studio in Paris. In 2003, he gained recognition and was nominated for the First Work Prize by the Moniteur d'architecture as a co-author of a prefabricated steel house. Starting in 2006, he lived in Berlin and founded Happyfew gallery and design studio. In 2011, upon his return to France, he became a resident of the artistic program of the Hermès corporate foundation. With the guidance of craftsmen from the Saint-Antoine workshop, he designed "Un genre humain," a totemic and wandering sculpture. He has performed at Le Générateur in Gentilly. Since 2001, he has collaborated regularly with Emmanuel Saulnier. He has been teaching at fine arts and architecture schools since 2009 and is currently an associate professor at the National School of Architecture in Paris Val-de-Seine. He resides in Paris, with his studios located in Seine-et-Marne.
