Born in 1962, Pierre Charpin is a visual artist who obtained his degree from the National School of Fine Arts in Bourges (F) in 1984. In the early 1990s, Pierre Charpin decided to concentrate on designing objects and furniture.
Pierre Charpin has since embarked upon a number of research and production projects, carrying out his unflagging research under a variety of auspices...
Upon being awarded the VIA (Valorizaton of Innovation in Furnishing) Carte Blanche grant in 1995, Pierre Charpin designed and produced a series of prototypes of seats and shelves in polystyrene—a material that tends to be associated mainly with industrial packaging.
In 1997, Pierre Charpin led a workshop at the first Saint Étienne International Design Biennial (F), where he focused on the car object. Defying the criteria called for by production and marketing, he deliberately came up with a “low-key design” meant to reemphasize the car object’s archetypal character.
1998 brought an invitation from the experimental glass workshop CIRVA (International Center for Research on Glass and Art). Here, in the period from 1998 to 2001, Pierre Charpin centered his research on the concept of landscape—something he went on to construct by means of some thirty blown glass vases.
Invited to explore the issue of decors on ceramic pieces at CRAFT (Center of Research on Ceramics and Enamel Applications in Art and Design) in 2003, Pierre Charpin research led him to define decoration more as a narrative element than as a merely ornamental sign system applied to an object’s surface. Concretizing his thoughts on the subject, the Ceram X Collection comprises a set of objects decorated with schematically depicted erotic scenes, produced by CRAFT as a limited edition in 2005.
The results of Pierre Charpin research also come across in the projects he has carried out for both Design Gallery Milano (2002 to 2005) and Galerie Kreo in Paris: since 2005,Pierre Charpin has been working exclusively with the latter for the production of pieces in limited series.
The Stands series of 2002 and the Oggetti Lenti series (co-produced with Haute Définition Paris) of 2005 are two of Pierre Charpin projects for Design Gallery Milano.
Objects designed for Galerie Kreo include the Playtime series of 2005, the Platform series of 2006, the All’aperto series of 2008—featuring a bench he designed in tandem with Alessandro Mendini—and the 8 ½ series in 2009.
In parallel to his research projects, Pierre Charpin has also become involved in the actual production of his design pieces, teaming up with such big-name firms as Alessi, Issey Miyake Parfums, Ligne Roset, Montina, Pamar, Post Design, Schneider Electric, Tectona, Venini, and Zanotta.
The year 2000 saw his participation in the “Two designers in Vallauris” event launched by DRAC (Regional Cultural Affairs Dept.) Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, for which Pierre Charpin designed a set of glazed grog clay objects, first fashioned in the workshop of Jacques Bro and then produced by Galerie Kreo.
In 2004 Pierre Charpin was the prize winner of the competition launched by the Société Anonyme de Gestion des Eaux de Paris (Paris Waterworks). Designed to convince Parisians of their tap water’s quality and incite them to drink more of it, his cast glass Eau de Paris water carafe was produced in a batch of 60,000.
The Paris Salon du meuble (furniture fair) named him “Creator of the Year” for the year 2005.
Meanwhile, the VaseTriplo he designed for Venini in 2004 was selected for the 2005 Compasso d’Oro (Golden Compass) design competition.
The following year (2006), he was commissioned by the Sèvres National Manufactory to design a set of new porcelain shapes destined to join the Manufactory’s heritage. The idea was to reactivate a tradition lost since the mid-fifties: namely, that of creating “all-white” shapes to serve as supports to decors to be designed by artists chosen by invitation from the Manufactory. Concurrently, and in coproduction with Galerie Kreo, the Manufactory brought out a limited series of Charpin’s Vases ruban (ribbon vases).
Pierre Charpin’s work has appeared in various collective exhibitions, including the Assembled in Ivry exhibition that he curated at the CREDAC (contemporary art center, Ivry) in 1996.
Numerous one-man shows have also taken place, among others at the following venues:
Galerie Perkal (Paris) in 1990, Galerie Post Design (Milan) in 1998 (una mostra di mobili), Galerie Kreo (Paris) in 2000, the Cabinet of Curios of the Decorative Arts Museum (Paris) in 2001 (torno subito), Design Gallery Milano in 2002 (Stands), Design Gallery Milano in 2005 (Oggetti Lenti), the Grand-Hornu Images contemporary design space (Bossu, Belgium) in 2005 (Pierre Charpin 2005), Galerie Kreo in 2006 (Platform), Galerie Kreo in 2008 (All’aperto), and Galerie Kreo in 2009 (8 1/2).
Of the many catalogues and diverse publications featuring Pierre Charpin work, we cite: Assembled in Ivry catalogue published in 1996 by CREDAC, un catalogo di mobili catalogue published in 1998 by Post Design, Pierre Charpin à Vallauris published in 2000 by Grégoire Gardette Editions, Pierre Charpin au CIRVA log book published in 2001 by Grégoire Gardette Editions, Oggetti Lenti catalogue published in 2005 by Design Gallery Milano, CeramX published in 2005 by CRAFT and Grand Hornu Images, Pierre Charpin 2005 l’imagier n°4 published in 2005 by Grand-Hornu Images, and Nouvelles Formes pour Sèvres published in 2008 by Bernard Chauveau Editeur.
In addition to Pierre Charpin own design activity, Charpin taught design at the Reims (F) School of Art and Design (ESAD) from 1998 to 2008, and since 2006 he has led several workshops for the Lausanne (Switzerland) Cantonal Art School (ECAL).
Various collections boast pieces by Pierre Charpin—notably: the FNAC (National Foundation for Contemporary Art), the Georges Pompidou Center, the Paris Museum of Decorative Arts, the Grand Hornu Images gallery (Belgium) and, as well, a number of private contemporary art and design collections in France and abroad.
After residing off and on in Milan during the 1990s, today Pierre Charpin lives and works in Ivry sur Seine, on the outskirts of Paris.
