Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/380083
94 CULTURED COURTESY OF GALERIE PERROTIN ©JEAN-MICHEL OTHONIEL (KOKORO); ©PHILIPPE CHANCEL (OTHONIEL, MURANO) 136 CULTURED "We give them the gift of time, and to come think and let thinking take you. While he was here, he was looking for this particular book, and that got him off thinking in a very beautiful way." It's true, in Boston, a city celebrated for its culture of higher education, Othoniel got lost in the archives of the Boston Public Library and scavenged one of three known copies of "Choreography, or the Art of Describing the Dance" by Raoul-Auger Feuillet, the revered choreographer of Louis XIV. The dynamic movements in the book's "filigree calligraphy" inspired Othoniel, who found that the text "was the key to enter this project." But the ISG wasn't just a place of discovery; Cavalchini is giving Othoniel the reigns in 2015 for an exhibition dedicated entirely to his new work, as well as room dedicated to the Versailles project. All along, however, Othoniel has been in search of a quality in his own practice that initially enticed him into the art game. His first encounter with art was at the age of six at an exhibition of Robert Morris, where he was mesmerized by the artist's brazen autonomy. "He could do whatever he wanted," Othoniel says. Since then, Othoniel's quest has been to develop a formal language that both he and the public are comfortable with. For him, to express, for the world, to read the larger message contained in those recognizable orbs. "Jean-Michel is not afraid of beauty," says Emmanuel Perrotin, who has been his dealer since 2003. "Beyond the aesthetic seduction of the forms, he is questioning notions of absence and desire, emotional scars and healing, as a form of self-portraiture." "I try to bring to people a sensation that they can escape the real world by using my work as a window to a spiritual level that escapes reality," he says. Though Othoniel has been plagued by the criticism that his work is merely "decorative," or more interior design than art, Perrotin counters, "The forms in his work have a meaning and are grounded in history." Othoniel adds, "I think this idea of the decorative is something that a lot of artists work around. It takes time for people to understand your work." Kin no Kokoro, 2013, at the Mori Art Museum; right, Othoniel at work in his studio. "Jean-Michel is not afraid of beauty. Beyond the aesthetic seduction of the forms, he is questioning notions of absence and desire, emotional scars and healing as a form of self-portraiture." —Emmanuel Perrotin