Jean-Michel Othoniel

Jean-Michel Othoniel’s solo exhibition “Les nœuds de Janus” (Janus’s Knots) succeeds in creating a synthesis of opposing values: strength and fragility, sophistication and rusticity, intricate detail and monumental scale. Throughout, delicate designs and materials strike the viewer by the primitive force they exude.

In Pink Lasso, 2008, alternating pink and clear beads, made of hand-blown Murano glass, are strung on a steel rod curved into the shape of the number eight. The series of beads suggests a necklace, yet the work hangs freely from a steel hook planted in the wall, in the manner of a cowboy’s lasso. Othoniel thus creates a double contrast, not only between fragility and strength (in the glass versus the steel) but also between the elegant and the rough-hewn (in his simultaneous evocation of necklace and lasso).

In Le Noeud de Lacan (Lacan’s Knot), 2009, Othoniel creates a different type of opposition, this time between simplicity and complexity. Here, the delicate beads are replaced with mirrored glass resembling polished steel balls: A handmade, irregular surface gives way to a smooth industrial finish. The geometric minimalism of these perfect spheres strikes a contrast with the intricacy of the overall three-dimensional shape: a continuous, closed loop that creates the illusion of three interlocking circles. Moreover, the work hangs freely from the ceiling via a nearly invisible string and thus appears to float in space, suggesting a mathematical abstraction. Indeed, the title is a reference to the seemingly impossible mathematical concept of Borromean rings (three tori interlocked in such a manner that removing one unlinks the other two) and to Jacques Lacan’s use of them to represent the interrelation between reality, symbolism, and imagination. Evoking Janus, who commonly stands for change and transition, Othoniel transforms circles into knots and the fragile beauty of glass into monumental force.