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Genius Loci is a not-for profit association under French law (1901 act) established in 2021 by Marion Vignal, curator and author specializing in contemporary art, design and architecture. The association is devoted to the promotion of architectural heritage and contemporary creation. Hidden or little-known architectural gems are brought to light and access is given exceptionally to private venues ordinarily closed to the public, enabling wider knowledge and discovery. The unveiling of such venues is orchestrated to resonate with contemporary creative arts so as to bring the spirit of a place back to life.
The Genius Loci association promotes artists and designers by providing a personal, intimate perspective of their work and history through its program of exhibitions in venues chosen for their singular architectural noteworthiness.
Breaking down barriers between artistic genres and building bridges between the past and the present, heritage and modernity, each exhibition brings together artists of different expressive modes – from visual arts, to olfaction, music and digital art.
With its experiential exhibitions, the Genius Loci association seeks to bring architecture to life in an emotion-filled sensory approach that aims to reveal the inner identity of a masterpiece. Visits of the exhibitions are open to all, by reservation and are aimed at as wide an audience as possible.
Genius Loci is an exclusive series of immersive exhibitions setting up a dialogue between architecture, design and contemporary art. Each edition offers an inside view of a private residence of exceptional artistic note, revealing the spirit of the place through artworks and especially commissioned works inspired by the personality of its creator and the creative genius resonating within the venue.
Conceived as an emotion-filled stroll, Genius Loci woos the public into a here and now that summons all the senses. An intimate experience of sight, sound and olfaction which draws its origins from the architecture and its enduring thought. Genius Loci is an international and itinerant project designed by Marion Vignal and carried out by the association that bears its name.
Join an international community of enthusiasts, connoisseurs and professionals of contemporary art, design and architecture. Genius Loci is a Paris-based not-for profit association whose purpose is to promote the legacy of architectural works together with contemporary creation.
Marion Vignal, curator
Marion Vignal is a curator and author. An expert in contemporary art and design, she promotes and supports young international creative talents through exhibitions and special commissions or projects. She studied literature and art history and is the author of several works on the history of design (Women Designers, a century of creation), interior architecture (Charles Zana, intérieurs) and olfactive art (Chanel, Les Editions de Parfum Frédéric Malle: the first twenty years). President of ida M., an editorial and artistic advisory studio, which she founded in Paris in 2015, she leads the Genius Loci association, established in 2021. She authored the Genius Loci exhibition at L’Ange Volant by Gio Ponti, in Garches in October 2021, gathering over twenty artists invited to engage in a dialogue with the spirit of the place.
Bénédicte Hurel, head of production
Trained in the management of luxury industries and at the Ecole du Louvre, Bénédicte Hurel works as a consultant in fashion and contemporary art. She led several assignments to design growth strategies for creative brands in New York and Paris. More recently, she has focused on advising private clients and corporate customers as well as personalities. A regular partner with the ida M. consultancy, since 2017, she co-founded the Genius Loci association in 2021.She heads the production of the Genius Loci series of experiential exhibitions. From 2008 to 2014, she was a board member of Make-A-Wish® France.
Bianca D’Ippolito, project lead
An Architect by training, Bianca D’Ippolito is a consultant in art, design and architecture. She divides her time between Paris and Milan and has devoted her career to the promotion of contemporary artists and to developing their works in an architectural setting. She advises private clients as well as architects and has delivered several projects in France, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States.
The upcoming edition of the Genius Loci exhibition-experience will take place in a new Parisian architectural venue which will be especially opened to the public on this occasion.
For its first edition under the patronage of the Embassy of Italy, Genius Loci rekindles the spirit of L’Ange Volant, designed and built in Garches, on the outskirts of Paris in 1927 by architect and designer Gio Ponti. L’Ange Volant is the Italian master’s sole architectural work in France and a quintessential reflection of his multi-faceted artistic expression. Levity, transparency and colour, his major inspirational themes, are celebrated for the duration of the exhibition-event through the creation of more than twenty international artists with various art forms, of which several commissioned works that draw inspiration from the spirit of the place. The works take pride of place in all of the villa’s focal points, from the entrance to the garden. The full spectrum of expression, ranging from sculpture to perfume, brings to light one of the many facets of Gio Ponti’s L’Ange Volant in a kaleidoscopic show encompassing the past, present and future.
L’Ange Volant was conceived by architect and designer Gio Ponti for the Bouilhet familly, then owners, directors and descendants of the founder of Christofle, the silverware maison. Nesting on the hillside in Garches, close to the Saint-Cloud golf course, this neo-Palladian villa built between 1925 and 1927, was designed down to the most minute detail by Gio Ponti. It was a seminal moment in his architectural work, his only construction project in France and one of the most well preserved in the world.
Gio Ponti was at once a painter, writer, architect, designer and a scenographer. All facets of his creativity are in evidence in this early career work, recently restored by its original owners. Every feature of the villa bears the hallmarks of the master, from walls to ceilings down to door handles and engraved mirrors and was also conceived as an ode to love. Indeed, its very construction was the setting for a couple to be formed, as Tony Bouilhet, the commissioner of the villa and Carla Borletti, Gio Ponti’s niece who came from Italy to visit her uncle on the building site first met. Thus, the architect named the villa L’Ange Volant as a nod to the lovers who were married there in 1928, barely a year after the inauguration.
This private commission allowed Ponti to realize his prototypical casa all’italiana, a concept of an Italianate villa envisioned around the notion of the joy of living, of theatre and empty space. With artefacts and art as permanent guests.
A celebration of the spirit of a place, Genius Loci is the first contemporary art and design exhibition open to the public to be staged in L’Ange Volant.
Born in Cyprus in 1967, Michael Anastassiades founded his London design studio in 1994. The world of jewelry is one if his main sources of inspiration. His creations, mostly light fittings, blend decorative art with sculpture and industrial design. They feature in the permanent collection of such cultural institutions as the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Victoria & albert Museum in London. He partners with many designers and manufacturers among whom are Hussein Chalayan, Swarovski Crystal Palace, Flos and Lobmeyr. Michael Anastassiades was elected Designer of the year 2020 by Maison & Objet, in Paris. Michael Anastassiades is represented by Nilufar (Milan).
Spanish-born Maloles Antignac divides her time between Paris and Madrid. Through the medium of sculpture, her work engages us to revisit our assumptions on feminity and our relationship with nature. A resident of the Martell Foundation in 2020, in 2018 Maloles Antignac took part in the creation of Toguna, an enduring collective work focused on the transmission of knowledge, at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. The Gabrielle & Guillaume gallery devoted a solo show to her Fertility Cycle in 2019 under the curatorship of Marion Vignal. Her works have also been exhibited in Chile and Mexico.
Born in 1975, architect Franklin Azzi lives and works in Paris. A graduate of the École Spéciale d’Architecture, he also studied in Scotland at the Glasgow School of Art. In 2006, he founded the Franklin Azzi Architecture Agency. A proponent of a pioneering cross-disciplinary approach mixing architecture, interior design, design and contemporary art, he conjures novel living and working spaces (The Bureau, Be In for LVMH), rethinking urban planning with careful consideration for legacy built areas (Beaupassage on behalf of Emerige) also devising dismountable and removable structures (the rooftop Pavilion at Galeries Lafayette).
BBPR is a group of Italian architects formed in 1932 by Gian Luigi Banfi (1910-1945), Lodovico Barbiano di Belgiojoso (1909-2004), Enrico Peressutti (1908-1976) and Ernesto Nathan Rogers (1909-1969), four architecture graduates of the Polytechnic University of Milan. During the second half of the XXth century, they led a number of brutalist projects in Milan; offices, residential and palace renovations. BBPR’s philosophy is at a midway point between tradition and modernity. The original shapes of their furniture designs are infused with by the belief that functionality precedes any advancement in aesthetic ideas. Successful partnerships with large corporations such as Olivetti, Arteluce and Arflex have placed the studio at the forefront of spreading a new culture of design. BBPR is represented by Nilufar (Milan).
Ever since the 2017 opening of his flower-workshop in the quiet surroundings of a Marais courtyard in Paris, Louis-Géraud Castor has been true to the guiding principles that sustained him for over fifteen years as an art dealer: always seek and convey beauty in the expression of its essence. The natural materials he uses form an artist’s palette that draws from the roots of his most admired art genres: colors, as in early Dutch paintings; texture in the manner of Jean-Michel Frank and the visible hand of the toiling artisan. Compositions are conceived as tandems: part object, part living and changing beings. At once a triumph of French elegance and a partially ephemeral work, the vase ceases to be merely a container to become an extension of life itself, an element chosen among such contemporary artists as Mathilde Martin, Alana Wilson or Denis Polge. As a committed artisan, Louis-Géraud Castor would rather follow the demands for seasonality and freshness than obey demands for ornamentation and ostentation. Each of his choices is elevated to symbolize living matter and lived experience. His approach is consistent with a sustainable movement in which flowers are once again seen as luxury items deserving of respectful care owed to mother nature and its seasonal rhythm.
Born in Brescia, Italy in 1958, Maurizio Donzelli’s work involves drawings, painting, sculpture, textiles and installation querying the meeting point between reality, its perception and its artistic representations. Imbued with philosophical examination, his work explores our relationships with nature and reality through visual phenomena relating to colour and images. Drawings, which he holds up as an intellectual pursuit, are an integral part of his work. Symbols of our singular vision, the mirrors reflect the unavoidable inaccuracy of our understanding of the world that surrounds us. Maurizio Donzelli is represented by Galerie Italienne (Paris).
Sophie Dries is an architect and designer. Having worked with Ateliers Jean Nouvel, Pierre Yovanovitch and Liaigre agencies, she founded her own studio in Paris in 2014, and in Milan in 2017. Her work blends architecture, interior design and design in a cutting-edge approach in which traditional techniques engage a conversation with modernity. Her furniture designs and ceramic works are a quest to find the ‘cosmic essence of matter’. Sophie Dries is represented by Nilufar (Milan).
Born in 1974, Latifa Echakhch is a French Moroccan visual artist who lives and works in Martigny (Switzerland). Oscillating between surrealism and conceptualism, her work calls into question the importance of symbols and reflects the tenuous nature of modernism. Exhibition held at international museums such as Centre Pompidou in Paris, Tate Modern in London or the Fondazione Memmo in Rome have been devoted to her productions. She has also taken part in group exhibitions at the Museum of modern art in Paris, at the Palais de Tokyo and at MoMA PS1 in New York. Latifa Echakhch won the Marcel-Duchamp Prize in 2013 and the Zurich Art Prize in 2015. She was chosen to represent Switzerland at the 59th Biennale Arte 2022 in Venice. Latifa Echakhch is represented by kamel mennour, Paris / London.
Sound designer and composer Jérôme Échenoz is the founder of the Adorable studio and co-founder of Institubes, an independent label for electro music. A former DJ and rap music producer, he is the songwriter for many young artists in the French music scene. He is a regular contributor to sound creations in collaboration with designers and artists.
For Genius Loci, Jérôme Échenoz has composed an original musical score, meant as a sound portrait of the villa, which will be broadcast as a sound installation in the villa L’Ange Volant in partnership with Bang & Olufsen.
Barnabé Fillion is a French perfumer-creative artist. He devoted himself to olfactive art having completed his training as a photographer and a botanist. For over ten years, he has been devising fragrances using traditional artesan fabrication techniques. He has drawn inspiration from his numerous trips and his compositions are made predominantly from natural ingredients. He is constantly on the lookout for ways to create hybrids between innovation and tradition. Barnabé Fillion regularly partners with fashion brands and artists on specific projects. He was chosen by the Australian organic cosmetic brand Aesop to create its perfume line, whose latest Rozu fragrance was designed as a tribute to Charlotte Perriand, designer and pioneer of modernism.
For Genius Loci, Barnabé Fillion is creating a bespoke perfume, inspired by the quintessence of L’Ange Volant by Gio Ponti in the form of an olfactive installation during the exhibition.
Unconventional creator, artesan, graphic artist and poet, Piero Fornasetti (1913-1988) holds a unique place in the rich tapestry of Italian design, without a doubt one of the most prolific decorative artists of the XXth century. His overflowing work, both art and artesan in a testament to his boundless imagination, his virtuosity in the art of storytelling through peerless furniture, decorative items and decors. Piero Fornasetti is represented by Nilufar (Milan).
Roberto Guilio Rida was born in Milan in 1943 and is a somewhat atypical artist. Starting out as an antique dealer, he befriended Murano masters, who thought him the craftsmanship of glassmakers. From 1973 onwards, he specialized in XXth century art, creating light fittings and furniture covered or cut-out with glass and crystal. Without regard for cultural trends, he leads his audience into a strange world in which science-fiction clashes with Italian Rennaissance under an intense, mineral glare. Roberto Giulio Rida is represented by Nilufar (Milan).
Born in Mulhouse in 1972, Laurent Grasso lives and works in Paris and New York. His films, sculptures, pictures and photography are steeped in an unsettling world fraught with uncertainty. His ability to conjure mystery-filled atmospheres blur the lines of our perceptive and cognitive senses. He has commissioned many public and private works and is exhibited in major institutions. In 2020, he was invited by the Musée d’Orsay to produce the Artificialis installation-work, partaking in a dialogue within the event-exhibition titled Les Origines du monde. An artists in residence at the villa Médicis in Rome in 2004. Laurent Grasso was awarded the Altadis prize in 2005, the Marcel-Duchamp prize in 2008 and the Meru Art*Science Award in Bergamo in 2017. In 2015, he was decorated with the medal as Chevalier de l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Laurent Grasso is represented by Perrotin (Paris).
Born in 1981, visual artist Milène Guermont lives and works in Paris. On completion of an engineering studies, she entered the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs, where she gained acclaim for her poly-sensorial concrete works blending poetry and innovation.
She created the Instants monument to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Second World War on Utah Beach, the Causse tomb at the Montparnasse cemetery and the monumental installation Phares displayed on Place de la Concorde in Paris in 2015, on the occasion of the ‘international year of light’ initiated by Unesco.
For Genius Loci, she will exclusively reveal a textile creation made in the context of the construction in Paris of the Maison Guermont, conceived as an overarching work of art bringing together over sixty companies and artesans.
Born in Paris in 1978, Camille Henrot lives and works between New York and Berlin. Her works are the scene of many media of expression (installations, sculptures, drawings and videos). Recipient of a silver Lion award for best young artist at the Venice Biennale in 2013 for her Grosse Fatigue work, Camille Henrot revisits our assumptions on object typologies and established thought processes. Camille Henrot’s work is on display in dedicated exhibitions at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, at the Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery and at the Fondazione Memmo in Rome. She won the Nam June Paik prize in 2014 and the Edvard Munch Art Award in 2015. Camille Henrot is represented by kamel mennour, Paris/London.
Mathias Kiss is a French contemporary artist with Hungarian roots, born in Poissy near Paris in 1972. He lives and works in Paris. He reflects on the question of deconstruction of the classical legacy, bluring the borderlines between art and artesan, in the tradition of movements such as the Arts & Crafts or the Bauhaus school. His works featured at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in 2016, and at the Palais des Beaux-Arts of Lille in 2019. In 2013, he was given the Wallpaper Design Award, then in 2016, the Young International Art Fair Brussels Award. He was president of the jury for the Grand Prix de la Création de la ville de Paris for 2020 – in the artistic crafts category.
Since they met at l’Ecole d’architecture des Beaux-Arts in Paris and the subsequent foundation of their own studio in 2000, Karl Fournier and Olivier Marty have displayed a singular signature on projects of all scales. Heirs to a rich vein of classical training, they lay claim to an immersive approach to their profession, encompassing architecture, interior design and furniture. Architects of the Yves-Saint-Laurent Museum in Marrakech, the Chiltern Firehouse hotel in London, instigators of the renovation of the Los Angeles landmark Château-Marmont, Studio KO devises bespoke furniture for each of its projects, a source of original experimentation, encounters with new textures, techniques and lighting.
Born in Katowice, Poland, in 1979 Alicja Kwade is a visual artist who lives and works in Berlin. Alicja Kwade’s work calls into question our reality and reflects the notions of time and space of our daily lives. Her sculptural work explores the material world drawing from mundane objects as well as raw materials such as glass, wood and copper. The WeltenLinie work was presented at the Venice Biennale in 2017, in which Alicja Kwade presented her singular exploration of space and perception. In 2019, she created a monumental installation for the rooftop of the MET in New York. Alicja Kwade is represented by kamel mennour, Paris/London.
Belgian landscape architect Bas Smets founded his agency in Brussels in 2007. He devises a wide range of projects internationally, from parks to private gardens. He notably authored the ten hectare Thurn & Taxis park in Brussels and the seafront at Himara, Albania. He was selected to conceive the Parc des Ateliers for the Luma foundation in Arles, in close collaboration with architects Frank O. Ghery and Annabelle Selldorff. Eliane Le Roux is a French-Argentinian architect, graphic arts and decorative designer. She founded her Paris-based studio, UNDR, in 2014 at the intersection of art, graphic arts, and technology. Together they have devised a series of outdoor furniture items, of which the Salta bench in Belgian stone exhibited exclusively at Genius Loci.
Marion Mailaender is an interior architect and designer who splits her time between Paris and her native city of Marseille. A figurehead of the emerging French scene, she devises a wide range of creations, from objects to scenographies, residential and commercial projects. Each of these reveal the artist’s audaciousness and humor with which she dispatches conventions, with no fear of breaching the limits of good taste, upturning references, codes, materials and typologies. She has collaborated with the artist Sophie Calle, the fashion designer Amélie Pichard and the Colombian designer Esteban Cortazar.
Born in Osaka, Japan in 1980, Nao Matsunaga lives and works in London. His work is steeped in myths, symbols, objects and rituals, addressing the issues of duality and opposition, mixing up the media such as clay or wood, or by setting opposites side-by-side: somber and shining, organic and geometric. Nao Matsunaga is represented by Nilufar (Milan).
Born in 1976, artist and designer Julian Mayor lives and works in England. A graduate of the London Royal College of Art in Design Products, he gained recognition for his welded steel sculpture works. Each of his creations is computer generated before it is developed in his workshop. In partnership with British designer Tom Dixon, his work was exhibited in 2004 at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London and at the Museum of Arts and Design, in New York. Julian Mayor is represented by Armel Soyer (Paris).
Studio Nucleo is an artists and designers collective based in Turin in Italy. Founded in 1999 by Stefania Fersini, Alice Carlotta Occleppo and Alexandra Denton, the studio is led by Piergiorgio Robino. Nucleo reaches into contemporary art, design and architecture. The studio’ s work, inspired by time, humanity and evolution, blends in theories with experimentation to tell a story about the past, present and future. The creations of Studio Nucleo have gained worldwide exposure, notably at Centre Georges-Pompidou in Paris and at the MoMa in New York. Studio Nucleo is represented by Nilufar (Milan).
Born in England in 1969, French-Irish designer Damian O’Sullivan lives and works between Paris and Brussels. A ceaseless attention to the uses and the choice of materials underpins his approach to the objects he designs, be they table, fashion accessories, decorative or furniture items. In each of his project, Damian O’Sullivan seeks to surprise, sometimes in almost invisible ways. A graduate of the London Royal College of Art, he lectured at the Design Academy in Eindhoven and founded the O’Sullivan studio in Brussels. His works have notably been edited by Hermès, Delvaux, Philips, Rosenthal and Louis Vuitton.
Architect and designer, Domenico, aka Ico, Parisi (1916 - 1996) embodies the modern Italian style of the 1950s. In 1945, Ico Parisi set up the first exhibition of contemporary furniture in Como. His connections with Gio Ponti, Lucio Fontana or Bruno Munari were influential to his vision of architecture and furniture design. He created interiors, wooden and metal furniture, glassworks, jewelry, architecture projects, which he devised either alone or with his wife, Luisa. Many fabrication firms edited his furniture (Singer & Sons, MIM, Cassina, Cappellini, Altamira…). Ico Parisi is represented by Nilufar (Milan).
Architect, designer, painter, draftsman, founder of the DOMUS review in 1928, Gio Ponti hails from a long line of Italian masters whose multi-faceted lifework extends over six decades. Born in Milan in 1891 and deceased in 1979, Gio Ponti’s creativity is displayed in public and private architectural projects, churches, universities, residential condominiums. A prolific designer with a passion for ceramics and craftsmanship, he was a lifelong advocate of Italian art de vivre and a major proponent of post-war Italian design. His most famed works include the Pirelli tower, built from 1956 to 1960 in Milan, the Planchart villa in Caracas and the Superleggera chair, created for Cassina in 1957.
Blending neo-classicism and modernism, L’Ange Volant villa, in Garches on the outskirts of Paris - commissioned by Tony Bouilhet and built between 1925 and 1927 - was his first architectural completion outside of Italy. For the first time, Gio Ponti set down the basic tenets of his concept for a Casa all’italiana. Every detail, from door handle to painted ceilings, engraved mirrors and lighting fixtures is part of an outline pointing towards his ideal of an all-encompassing work of art.
Born in 1961, painter and visual artist Agnès Sébyleau lives and works in Paris. Trained in art history and modern literature, her initiation to the creative arts came gradually. Drawing her inspiration from the minimal aspect of objects, she confections scultpures out of crocheted string, re-assembled mesh and stitched incisions. Agnès Sébyleau is represented by Armel Soyer (Paris).
Born in Huddersfield (UK) in 1980, Jonathan Trayte lives and works in Margate, in Kent. Our greed-fueled consumerism and the influence of advertising on our decisions are recurring themes inspiring Jonathan Trayte’s work, which offers a reinterpretation of the natural world, creating surreal facsimile in saturated colours out of varied material. He explores the psychology of desire through surfaces, materials, lighting and colour. His work has featured in many international exhibitions, notably the Royal Academy of Arts in London in 2015. In 2019 he delivered a monument for the London council. Jonathan Trayte is represented by Nilufar (Milan).
Trained at the Beaux-Arts in Paris, Alix Waline studies textile at La Cambre school in Brussels. Inspired by the cells in the human body, she was introduced to the aesthetics of pointillism and worked on projects with hotels (the Chess Hôtel) and restaurants (Kinugawa, Table et Akrame) in Paris in partnership with the interior design agency Gilles & Boissier. Her drawings mix organic shapes with abstraction. Alix Waline is represented by Armel Soyer (Paris).
Sabatina Leccia is a French artist- born in 1984- who lives and works in Montreuil near Paris. Her work balances between Art and Craft. In 2012, she graduated from MA Material Futures at Central Saint Martin’s School of Art and Design in London where she started to work on experimental embroidery. In 2015, she exhibited her Painting Embroidery series at Amélie de Borchgrave gallery in Bruxelles and was selected for an Art Residency in Estonia where she developed Poetic Plastic.
In 2019, Sabatina Leccia was choosen by Patou to embroider the costume of the academician Barbara Cassin in collaboration with La Fabrique Nomade and Baqué Molinié studio.
Several works have been especially commissioned for Genius Loci. Inspired by the spirit of L’Ange Volant, they take pride of place both inside and outside of the villa.
Architect Franklin Azzi authors his first artistic feat with Le Saint, a light installation referencing the spirituality of the place and of its creator. Conceived as an inaugural work of the Genius Loci experience, it floats as if by magic in the entrance courtyard.
In the garden, artist Mathias Kiss spreads out the wings of the angel over the lawn of the villa. This polished stainless-steel work symbolized the overshadowing figure of L’Ange Volant.
Inside the villa, architect and designer Sophie Dries reveals a Murano glass mirror incrusted with stones referencing Gio Ponti’s passion for minerals and his obsession with transparency. English artist Julian Mayor minted a low welded steel table that shimmers like a block of crystal. Spanish artist Maloles Antignac shaped a sculpture inspired by the iconography of the hand, one of the iconic themes of Gio Ponti’s work in ceramics. Textile sculptor Agnès Sébyleau unfolds her tentacular wings as the fingers of a prodigious hand. French-Irish designer Damian O’Sullivan presents a double candle holder, inspired by the union theme as a tribute to the quest for light and levity of the Italian designer, as well as a vase whose shape is both sensually round and geometrically rigorous.
Composer Jérôme Échenoz attempts to capture the spirit of the place in realizing the sound installation that accompanies the visitor strolling from the entrance through the rooms upstairs, while Barnabé Fillion created a perfume especially for Genius Loci that seeks to resonate with the spirit of the locale and draws from the major inspirational themes of Gio Ponti: mirror effects, transparency and lightness of being. The scent is unveiled in stages throughout the exhibition, note after note.
Through his Spectral Ponti work commissioned in partnership with Diorama productions for Genius Loci, Laurent Grasso attempts to probe the supernatural dimension contained in the spirit of a place. His film draws the spectator through the digital mock-up of the villa l’Ange Volant by Gio Ponti using LIDAR scanner technology. It follows the footsteps of Spectral Orsay, recently unveiled at the Musée d’Orsay. Spectral Ponti reveals the artist’s vision of the villa which is at once ultra-contemporary and timeless. Laurent Grasso has made a habit of immersing the spectator in a troubled world in which our perceptive boundaries are blurred, mystery emerges, offering a journey through time. His way of making worlds collide chimes as a distant echo with the ideas of Gio Ponti, for whom architecture was meant as a collection of spectacles.
Nestled in a lush hillside between Paris and Versailles, L’Ange Volant villa was conceived in 1927 by Gio Ponti for the Bouilhet familly, founders and heirs of the Christofle silverware maison. Devised as an all-encompassing whole, from doorhandle to the garden, this country retreat is the only architectural work of the Milanese master in France. Long the preserve of the familly and friend circle, L’Ange Volant has in more recent times opened its doors to enthusiasts of Gio Ponti’s work for visits of short stays.
For more information on visits or rentals: angevolant.com @villa.angevolant
Charles Christofle was twenty-five years old in 1830, when he created the company that bears his name. The company quickly acquired a reputation for expertise and elegance thanks to its prestigious clients: King Louis-Philippe, Napoleon III, and the liner Normandie, which set sail with more than 40,000 pieces of silverware on board. Christofle’s craftsmanship was further recognized by winning many awards at the Universal Exhibitions from 1855 to 1937. Later, the brand joined the collections of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs and the Louvre. Though the Maison is rich in history, Christofle still continues to grow and appeal to the newer generation thanks to its contemporary tableware creations that reinvent the conviviality of today and tomorrow by making the art of sharing a true art of living. Christofle has successfully collaborated with artists and designers with the aim of creating pieces that respond elegantly to contemporary uses.
christofle.com @christofle
Diorama is a 3D production company, founded in 2016 Gilberto Bonelli and Gianni Vesentini, both graduates of Milan Politecnico school of architecture. With bases in Milan, Paris and Verona in Italy, Diorama specializes in artistic direction and creative work in imaging, video, virtual reality and digital content for architecture, design, scenography, fashion, urban development, art and cinema.
diorama.eu @diorama.eu
Bang & Olufsen delivers bespoke audio solutions suited to all occasions and needs. Founded in Struer, Denmark, in 1925 by Peter Bang and Svend Olufsen, two pioneers whose drive and vision permeate the company’s strategy to this day. For close to a century, Bang & Olufsen has been striving to push the limits of technology ever higher, which has kept the company at the edge of innovation in sound.
bang-olufsen.com @bangolufsen
An innovator in weaving and fabrics edition for interior design, Métaphores is a celebrated brand, inspiring and contemporary, belonging to Hermès’ textile division. Métaphores, the finest of French signatures, brings together the centenarian know-how of Verel de Belval for silk furnishings and Le Crin for hand-woven horsehair, as well as the mastery of textile materials with remarkable sensory and visual creativity. Métaphores fabrics are born of a subtle alchemy between materials, history and gesture, supported by its rigorous choice of partners and careful selection of raw materials. This overarching sustainable development approach lowers the environmental impact of the collections.
metaphores.com @metaphores
castor-fleuriste.com @castorfleuriste
Join an international community of enthusiasts, connoisseurs and professionals of contemporary art, design and architecture. Genius Loci is a Paris-based not-for profit association whose mission is to promote the legacy of architectural masterpieces together with contemporary creation.
«The Genius Loci association grew from our aspiration to create and share unique experiences around architecture, be they artistic or interpersonal. Our mission consists in reviving and revealing singular venues, to set a new vibration around them, to perpetuate their spirit, to tell the story of their creator and their owners, to make their singularity resonate through artistic conversations involving various creative means of expression that extoll contemporary creation with a view to establishing a fertile dialogue between the past, present and future» – MARION VIGNAL
If you are a corporate entity and wish to support Genius Loci as an official partner.
Corporate donations are open to tax rebates of up to 60% under sections 238bis of the Code Général des Impôts under the threshold of 5 per 1000 of turnover. Entities must be established in France for tax purposes.
Support the actions and artistic program of Genius Loci. Meet with artists and creative minds of the contemporary scene and get access to exclusive experiences.
YOUR BENEFITS • Invitation to openings and collectors’ preview of the Genius Loci exhibitions. • Private visit to the annual Genius Loci exhibition presented by the curating team. • Meet with artists from the Genius Loci programs, opportunities to visit their studios. • Genius Loci exhibition catalogue. • Several times a year, invitation to exclusive Genius Loci experiences coinciding. with major get-togethers of the contemporary art, design and architecture calendar (Venice art or architecture Biennale, Milan Design week , Art Basel…).
PRIVATE VISITS IN SMALL GROUPS TO • Building sites for landmark restoration projects in the presence of their architect. • Villas and private palaces in the presence of their proprietors. • Emerging artist studios in their presence.
Annual dues - solo € 1 000 / duo € 1 500
The duo option affords the right to subscribe: - For two persons, each having access to benefits linked to membership. - For one person, and the privilege of coming with one guest of their choice to each of the events.
Membership opens rights to tax* rebates up to: - 66% of the amount donated for private persons (€ 340 solo / € 510 duo after rebate) - 60% for corporate entities ( €400 solo / € 600 duo after rebate)
*Under sections 200 and 238bis of the Code Général des Impôts under the threshold of 20 % of net taxable income and 5 per 1000 of turnover for corporations. Persons must be established in France for tax purposes.
As a supporter and ambassador of Genius Loci, you will uphold the actions and artistic program of the association. You will enjoy a front seat on the creative art scene and gain access to exclusive experiences around architecture, contemporary art and design.
YOUR BENEFITS • A preview visit of the Genius Loci exhibition with the curator prior to the official vernissage. • Exclusive Invitation to a performance especially commissioned for the Genius Loci exhibition. • Invitation to the vernissage and to the collectors’ preview of the Genius Loci exhibitions. • Private and bespoke visit with artists of the Genius Loci program, visits of their studios. • Genius Loci exhibition catalogue. • Several times a year, invitation to exclusive Genius Loci experiences coinciding with major get-togethers of the contemporary art, design and architecture calendar (Venice art or architecture Biennale, Milan Design week , Art Basel…).
PERSONAL BESPOKE VISITS TO • Building sites for landmark restoration projects in the presence of their architect. • Villas and private palaces in the presence of their proprietors. • Emerging artist studios in their presence.
Annual dues - solo € 3 500 / duo € 5 000
Membership opens rights to tax* rebates up to: - 66% of the amount donated for private persons ( € 1 190 single / € 1 700 twin after rebate) - 60% for corporate entities ( €1 400 single / € 2 000 twin after rebate)
U.S.-based donors can support Genius Loci’s activities in a tax-efficient way through a contribution to the American Friends of Genius Loci at the King Baudouin Foundation United States (KBFUS).
Association Genius Loci 11 rue Léopold Bellan 75002 Paris Board of the Genius Loci association Marion Vignal, president Bénédicte Hurel, secretary Malachi O’Rourke, treasurer Genius Loci is an association under the 1901 act, Registered under number W751261664