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Olivier Vadrot

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Olivier Vadrot
BornSemur-en-Auxois Edit this on Wikidata
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Olivier Vadrot is a French artist and designer that studied architecture. In his work, he embraces many disciplines ranging from music, to scenography and public furniture. He is known for his mobile architecture and exploration of the ergonomy of ancient theatres. His works have been exhibited at Centre Pompidou and at the 2017 Biennale of Architecture in Lyon. Some of his projects are part of the collections owned by French cultural institutions such as FRAC Aquitaine [fr] in Bordeaux,[1] musée régional d'art contemporain Occitanie (Mrac), FRAC Paca in Marseille[2] and Frac Île-de-France.[3]

Personal life

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Olivier Vadrot was born in Semur-en-Auxois (France) in 1970 and currently lives in Beaune, Burgundy.[4]

Career

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After having graduated with a degree in architecture from Lyon's school of architecture, Vadrot started out as an assistant to the Japanese architect Shigeru Ban in France. Working alongside Ban since 1998 through 2001, he took part in creating the Cap Canal project at Centre D'interprétation Du Canal De Bourgogne.[5] He also assisted Daniel Buren in the realisation of "Construction"[6] a site specific installation presented at the centre d’art Le Consortium in Dijon (June 5 – July 25, 1998).[7]

La Salle de Bains

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Aside from his architectural experience with Ban, in 1998, he founded (together with Lionel Mazelaygue and Gwenaël Morin) La Salle de Bains, a 25sqm alternative exhibition space in Lyon, France.[8] Vadrot described the place as a way "to engage in a dialogue with artists of the past generation", and "to get back to uninhibited architectural and design practice".[8] Sixty seven exhibitions were organised at La Salle de Bains in the period of 1999—2013,[9] featuring artists such as Xavier Veilhan (2000), Olivier Mosset (2006), Gianni Motti (2007),[10] Claude Closky (2003), Mrzyk & Moriceau (2006), Claude Lévêque (2002) and Matthew McCaslin (2002).[11]

Cocktail Designers

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Carrying on the multidisciplinary approach they had addressed during the previous years, in 2004, Vadrot and Mazelaygue founded the design group called 'Cocktail Designers', together with the two French graphic designers, Claire Moreux and Olivier Huz, with whom they had collaborated at La Salle de Bains.[12] The same year, the group presented their first collection of objects named "Form Follows Function" at the experimental Galerie Roger Tator in Lyon, France. In the show, the group questioned the relationship between art and design by hijacking everyday shapes to create new ones.[13] "I think some of our objects belong to both design and art, to the category we temporarily call "practical sculpture"", explained Vadrot in an interview to the French journalist Clément Nouet in 2006. "There is a long history of borrowings and references between art and design, the two disciplines mirror each other", he concluded.[14] According to the journalist Olivier Reneau, the group adopted "the same aesthetic and conceptual concerns as those developed by the Dutch Droog Design and Moooi who work as much with recycling forms as with ideas."[15] Following this first show, an updated version of "Form Follows Function" was also exhibited at La Chaufferie (Galerie de l'école supérieure des arts décoratifs - 5 rue de la Manufacture des Tabacs) in Strasbourg from January 13 and February 26, 2006.

Solo career and research on theatres

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The first structure inspired by the shape of ancient theatres implemented by Vadrot was presented at the Villa Medici[16] in Rome during his residency at the French Academy in 2011-2012. Named Circo Minimo, the project was intended as a nod to Rome's Circus Maximus and was designed to accommodate small-scale performances and debates.[17] Subsequently, Vadrot visited several ancient theatres located in the Mediterranean region such as Delos, Priene and Syracuse, to study the ergonomy of their rows of seats. This research was expressed in the Hors Les Murs 2016 programme, organised by the Institut Français. Following these field trips, in 2016, he developed Cavea, a nomadic platform made of plywood for the National Centre for Visual Arts (CNAP) in Paris.[18] In 2018, the project was used as a backdrop to the conferences organised by the Centre Pompidou in Paris in the frame of the exhibition “May 68 - General Assembly”[19] as well as on the occasion of the FIAC 2018.[20]

Initially limited to the study of Greek and Roman theatres, Vadrot's corpus gradually spread to the theatres of the Renaissance and contemporary architecture such as that designed by Le Corbusier on the roof of Unité d’Habitation. Reinterpreting the project of the Swiss architect, in June 2015, Vadrot launched Les Tribunes, a scenographic device conceived during the "Make it work/The Negotiations Theatre" event organised by the theatre of Nanterre-Amandiers.

Selected works

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  • Le Kiosque Électronique (2009)
  • Minimo (2010)[21]
  • Précisions sur les Vagues, in collaboration with Célia Houdart and Sébastien Roux, coproduced by Centre dramatique national Orléans, Festival d’Avignon, Centre national de création musicale, La Muse en circuit [fr], Stanza (2012)
  • Coulisses (2013)[22]
  • La Veille, in collaboration with Célia Houdart, Sébastien Roux, Yannick Fouassier, Laurent Poitrenaux (voice) and the students of the Comédie in Reims (2013)
  • Totem et tattoo (2014)[23]
  • A Catalogue of Steps & Diary of an Image, in collaboration with DD Dorvillier (2014)[24]
  • Le Vertugadin (2015)[25]
  • Les Tribunes (2015)
  • Flash collection (2016)[26]
  • Cavea (2016)
  • Pentélique (2016)
  • Faire, c’est dire, in collaboration with Tectoniques Architectes (2017)[27]
  • La guérite de Marie (2018)[28]
  • Minimo (exhibition, 2018)[29]

References

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  1. ^ "Olivier Vadrot". Collection du Frac Aquitaine. 8 September 2021. Laptop Fire (2009) ... Coulisses (2013)
  2. ^ "Pierre Beloüin, Olivier Vadrot, Cocktail Designers". Collection du Frac Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. 8 September 2021.
  3. ^ "Poltergeist". frac île-de-france. 25 September 2014. Le Kiosque électronique (2004), collection of the FRAC Ile-de-france Le Plateau
  4. ^ Olivier Reneau, "Gentleman-designer, L'atelier d'Olivier Vadrot, Savigny-les-Beaune, France", enroute, August 2008, p. 48-49 [printed]
  5. ^ Clément Nouet, "La salle de bains à Lyon, entretien avec Olivier Vadrot", archistorm, January–February 2005, pp. 77-74 [printed]
  6. ^ ""Constructions" - Expositions Daniel Buren".
  7. ^ Vadrot, Olivier. ""Mes rapports avec l'architecture..." entretien avec Daniel Buren, 1999".
  8. ^ a b Clément Nouet, "La salle de bains à Lyon, entretien avec Olivier Vadrot", archistorm, January–February 2005, p. 75 [printed]
  9. ^ "La Salle de bains - les presses du réel (Book)".
  10. ^ Bailly, Bérénice (22 February 2007). "Gianni Motti dresse un monument à 759 détenus de Guantanamo". Le Monde (in French). Retrieved 27 August 2019.
  11. ^ "contact – La Salle de bains". lasalledebains.net.
  12. ^ Clément Nouet, "Form follows Function", archistorm #18, March–April 2006, p. 77 [printed]
  13. ^ Clément Nouet, "Forms follows function - entretien avec Olivier Vadrot", archistorm #18, March–April 2006, pp. 77-74 [printed]
  14. ^ "Plus que des références je pense que certains de nos objets appartiennent aux deux univers, design et art, dans une catégorie que nous appelons provisoirement "sculpture pratique". Il y a une longue histoire des emprunts et des références entre l'art et le design, les deux disciplines se renvoyant l'une à l'autre en miroir." in Clément Nouet, "Forms follows Function", archistorm #18, March–April 2006, pp. 76-77 [printed]
  15. ^ "Cocktail Designers s’inscrit dans les mêmes préoccupations esthétiques et conceptuelles que celles notamment développées par les hollandais de Droog Design ou de Moooi qui oeuvrent autant au recyclage des formes que des idées." Katia Baudin-Reneau, Paul Cox and Olivier Reneau, Cocktail Designers, Les presses du réel, 2008, pp. 2-6 [printed]
  16. ^ "Olivier Vadrot - Villa Medici".
  17. ^ Marie Vindy, “Une parenthèse romaine”, Cahier Local 19, 24 November 2013, p. 21
  18. ^ "Cavea : une salle de conférence nomade conçue par Olivier Vadrot - Centre national des arts plastiques". www.cnap.fr. 21 April 2016.
  19. ^ "Jour Première - En direct de Paris pour les 50 ans de Mai 68 - 27/04/2018". Rtbf.be. 27 April 2018. Retrieved 7 August 2018.
  20. ^ "Conversations et conférences sur l'art - FIAC". www.fiac.com. Archived from the original on 23 May 2018.
  21. ^ "France. An exhibition celebrates the ephemeral architecture of Olivier Vadrot".
  22. ^ Marie-Cécile Burnichon, Catherine Elkar, Sylvie Froux, “Coulisses - Conversation entre Olivier Vadrot et Claire Jacquet”, Les Pléiades - 30 ans de création dans les Fonds régionaux d'art contemporain, Flammarion, 2013 [French]
  23. ^ "Entretien avec Olivier Vadrot - Exposition Totem et Tattoo - Vidéo dailymotion". Dailymotion. 14 May 2014.
  24. ^ Siobhan Burke, "In a Choreographer’s Series, a Moment to Showcase Her Influences", The New York Times, 26 May 2014
  25. ^ Rousseau, Parc. "Le Vertugadin – Olivier Vadrot".
  26. ^ Lorraine Rossignol, "Avec la "Flash Collection", les oeuvres d'art entre dans les lycées", Télérama, 18 December 2017
  27. ^ Stéphanie Sonnette, "Faire, c'est dire. Construire en bois sanglé - entretien avec Olivier Vadrot et Alain Vargas", D'architectures #253, 18 April 2017, p. 67, [French]
  28. ^ Presented at La Tolerie in Clermont-Ferrand until December 2019
  29. ^ Olivier Lacrouts & Laura Drouet, "France. An exhibition celebrates the ephemeral architecture of Olivier Vadrot", Domusweb, 28 July 2018
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