In April 2019, as Guillaume Bardet was completing the installation of his exhibition at Galerie kreo, Notre-Dame was burning. Five years later, the iconic cathedral is being reborn, and it is Bardet who envisioned and sculpted its new liturgical objects. From the baptismal font to the chalice—crafted in bronze, silver, and gold— these pieces will shine with a distinctly contemporary light. It’s not a miracle but rather the culmination of Bardet’s journey, marked by both strength and humility. He has always embraced ambitious and extraordinary projects: Immobile Furniture, The Use of Days, The Fabric of the Present, and The Last Supper.
Alongside his work for Notre-Dame, Bardet presents a new collection at Galerie kreo. Eighteen pieces, developed over five years, where the solitary path of the artist intertwines with a new age of bronze, capturing the earthy and dreamlike essence of objects in a world of fear and chaos. In his studio in Dieulefit (Drôme), some works waited patiently to find their final form and soul. They “conversed,” unfolding like an intimate journal, a dynamic story that mirrored the artist’s restlessness before ultimately blossoming into their final shapes.
One must follow La Promenade, a lamp with two legs, its face illuminated in polished golden bronze—playful and light. Then there is Georges, a bench-umbrella that might whisper Brassens, poised as if waiting or anticipating. The Single leg table, a mass in levitation, emerged from Bardet’s early encounters with marble at the Villa Medici. The Ladder, hybridized with a lamp, is a commission from Galerie kreo that Bardet transformed, connecting it intimately to his personal library and chair. And then, there are the totems, luminous and silent presences.
These pieces, poetically functional, are as formally simple as they are complex, slow to take shape in the foundries. “Bronze stops time,” Bardet rejoices. “It’s a material that expresses power, the power to tame chaos, to distance oneself through art. Each piece supports a state of mind.” Balancing the strength of bronze with the fragility of the world, Bardet plays with halos of light that evoke the fleeting magic of dawn and dusk.
During a visit to the Soulages Museum in Rodez last summer, Bardet stood before Outrenoir and felt, in that moment, that his work exists in Outre Temps—Beyond Time. “I have been weaving the same thread for a long time: I work alone, and my projects are intertwined. It is a kind of immutable time, beyond past and future. This is different from design, which lives in the ultrapresent.”
Portrait
Anchored in the ancient art of bronze, Bardet’s work is narrative rather than decorative, with no filter between his existence and his creations. His references are his life itself— from pallor to incandescence. This exhibition forms a new choral portrait of the creator, one that will resonate with the splendour of Notre-Dame come December 7th.
Guillaume Bardet is a French designer and sculptor. After completing his studies at ENSAD, he earned a residency at Villa Medici in Rome and a scholarship from the French Academy in Rome, which allowed him to embark on his first major project: “Mobilier Immobile” (Immobile Furniture). In 2011, he was awarded the prestigious Fondation Bettencourt Prize for “l’intelligence de la main” (the intelligence of the hand) for his project “L’Usage des jours” (The Use of Days). In 2015, he assumed the role of pedagogical director at the Fondation Hermès. His first collaboration with Galerie kreo — a collection made entirely of bronze — was unveiled in 2019.
Guillaume Bardet
December 06, 2024 – January 25, 2025
Galerie kreo
31, rue Dauphine
75006 – Paris
See also: New York Met Unveils New Wing Design
