MARTINE BEDIN – SO FEW THINGS

French designer and architect Martine Bedin, who trained in Bordeaux, Florence, and Paris (where she graduated her DPLG architecture degree in 1983), will be at the Lens Art Center for a talk on “So Few Things”, a personal reflection she will share with the audience.

“Why can’t we fully open the back windows of cars anymore and drive with our hair blowing in the wind under the blazing sun? Why do smart objects talk to us as if we were idiots? Why does everyone say ‘like’ before every sentence? Why are most contemporary pieces of furniture made of poplar plywood? Why are beautiful things expensive and ugly ones cheap? Why is the same news about a horrific crime translated and published simultaneously in every language? Why is poetry never published in daily newspapers? What business is it of artists to meddle? Why don’t we say what a flagship store really is? Who decides for us? Over the past forty years, I have watched with concern the gradual disappearance of beauty. And yet I believe beauty has something to do with freedom.”

Martine Bedin was one of the founding members of the Memphis Group in Italy. In 1982, she opened a design, architecture, and art consulting agency in Milan. In 1991, she returned to France, stepping away from industrial production to focus on creating unique pieces.

In 2013, she set up her studio in Paris, where she has since been producing and exhibiting her creations and drawings. She also heads JND, the design agency of architect Jean Nouvel, and teaches at the École Camondo. Since 2023, the Galerie Crèvecœur in Paris has been exhibiting her painted objects, drawings, watercolors, and oils—finally granting her full recognition as an artist.

Her book “Objets, nos amis – une conversation” (Objects, Our Friends – A Conversation), co-written with Claude Eveno and published by éditions éoliennes, will be available for purchase at the Fondation Opale shop.

CHF 10.- | Free for Friends of Fondation Opale and with Abobo
Booking recommended: online ticketing

Photo credit: Jeannette Montgomery Barron