Hubert Le Gall
‚Le Calendrier de verre‘

Berlin

A plant-shaped armchair, a flower-shadowed table or a flower keyed chest of drawers, no material or aesthetics resist to the Hubert le Gall. The 56 years old French artist does not hide his naturalistic inspirations that shape each and every of his creations. Flora and fauna are two anchored visions that guide Le Gal’s creations. For his collaboration with the French champagne house Ruinart, he applied the very same principle. Chosen to create the new limited edition of the Blancs des Blancs of Ruinart, Hubert Le Gall transcripts the WineHouse concept of “Art de Vivre” through glass. And not just on any glass, but on the Murano one.

In the making of the limited bottle edition, Hubert Le Gall created as well ‘Le Calendrier de Verre’. A glass creation corresponds to each month of the year playing with the transparency and dilated glass material to give them a visual shape. Therefore, December is a black-brown saucer through which a fragile stem is growing and May a blooming branch covered of thin glass bud that will open on the June and July creations. These twelve unique pieces has been immortalized in a book named after their concept – Le Calendrier de verre.

During Gallery Weekend Berlin, Le Gall’s twelve artworks for Ruinart have been on show at Circle Culture Gallery. We met the artist on site and discussed his inspiration and realization of Le Calendrier de verre.

Wertical:How did it start with you and Ruinart?
Hubert Le Gall: It’s a personal connection. Paris is a small town and the people working at the Paris office of Ruinart have known my work; especially my furnitures that always tell a story. Ruinart contacted me and asked me to do a work that reflects their vision and vineyard. I agreed and found out, there is a lot to tell about the brand and its philosophy. They actually expected me to do one sculpture; maybe made from bronze – just something typical.

WE: But you had another vision.
HLG: Yes. Next to me working as a furniture designer, I am also a scenographer working on exhibitions. A few years ago I did an exhibition about Murano glass. For my research, I have been to Murano a couple of times. It has been very inspiring. Ruinart chamapagne has its very unique color, transparency and texture. The bubbles are very soft. These features made me think about Murano glass as the perfect material to work with for Ruinart. It is handmade and that is exactly what I wanted to integrate: the emotion of human craft.

WE: As champagne is partly hand-made too.
HLG: Exactly, making champagne is a very traditional process with only little alternation by modernity. And it’s the same with Murano glass. The disciplines are marked by men control the material. One important factor to both processes – making champagne and glasses – is time. The glass needs to be formed in the right moment while being liquid, the grapes need to be picked in the right moment and then the bottle needs to be opened at the right time. So the question about time is very special and personal.

WE: In what way did the issue of time influence your works?
HLG: I visualized the process of making champagne during a 12 month timespan. I made 12 sculptures each telling about another step of the process. The works are like poems. Each month is a poem. All the pieces together make one.

WE: How does this look like?
HLG: I came to the Ruinart vineyard in February 2014 first. I have seen wine-growing areas before, but I only visited them in September when nature is at its full glory. In February, there was nothing besides the sticks that would soon carry the plant and fruits. I worked with the sticks that are also used on the vineyard and on I surrounded them with glass. And although, I wanted to emphasize the human working on material, I didn’t want to make it obvious. When you have a glass of champagne in your hands, it’s in fact something very technique that you are holding, but you don’t think about what is behind. This was the optimum for me, to have something that looks easy but is in fact difficult to make. So I wanted my works to be something like a glass of champagne – easy and full of a story at the same time.

WE: You skillfully mastered. You can either look at the works as abstract sculptures or try to read them.
HLG:Exactly. In fact, the pieces demonstrate the whole development including the ground, the yard and the sky. The sculptures of May, June for example, present the maturity of the plants. The grapes are coming out. The sculpture of August shows: the grapes are at full maturity.

Artist’s website