THIERRY DESPONT- by Susanna Salk for 1stdibs
“I am a very happy man,” says acclaimed artist, architect, and designer Thierry Despont. It is a declaration not of smugness but rather of genuine contentment that the orbits of his creativity are now completely aligned. Defying categorization, Despont overseas a thriving Tribeca design office as well as his nearby art studio with equal parts passion and discipline. “One medium absolutely informs the other,” he explains. “I would not be half the artist I am today if I hadn’t gotten a degree in architecture at the Beaux Arts school in Paris. And my work as an artist influences every home or building I design.”

On the brink of a major exhibition at the Marlborough Gallery in Chelsea entitled “Through the Moon Door,” this will be the first time Despont’s drawings, paintings, and sculptures will be shown in one venue.  His featured work is a culmination of five years exploration of an imaginary universe where he has acted as both creator and curator. “I have been consumed by the idea of a natural history museum dedicated to the collecting of specimen, objects, maps, and inhabitants of this imaginary world,” explains Despont.

It came to him in a dream where he cast himself as a man named “Doctor Gurnweith” who is artist and collector as well as explorer. While Despont has no idea where the name came from, Doctor Gurnweith’s role in documenting nature’s resplendent inventory is not so far removed from Despont’s own mission to construct, document, and develop what he sees into something new and unexpected.  At first what appear as abstract paintings suddenly emerge as moody and mysterious celestial bodies and planets and intricate sculptures are constructed from collections of discarded relics from the industrial era.  

In his upcoming show, Despont transforms old workshop tools and fragments of found machinery and farming equipment into fantastic assemblages of imaginary insects who merit their own display cases (also created by Despont). Flea market finds now feel like fossils of another civilization, which Despont is as urgent about exploring as the real one he occupies.  “These weird and discarded objects, gathered from foreign shops or virtual recesses of the online universe, became like finds from my voyage around a dream world,” says Despont. 

Guests will enter into Despont’s world via “The Moon Door,” a massive door made of poured of white bronze and rusted iron plates that is the ideal portal to a new universe. Inside, sculptures of creatures and insects and an orbit of painted planets act as Despont’s most eloquent ambassadors. “We’ve lost our sense of wonder and I hope to try and restore that a little bit,” says Despont.  “Museums and people are so specialized these days.” 

He has striven to never categorize himself. Having been trained as an artist and an architect at Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-art in Paris, Despont has enjoyed tremendous success in both mediums because of his willingness to follow his imagination, whether it calls out in the form of a mask or a museum. “That would be my dream someday,” says Despont. “To design and build a permanent building that would house all my works from drawings to sculptures, to paintings and installation pieces.  It would be a place to explore, to discover, how all these works relate, interact, and inform each other.  This place would be the installation itself.” Despite the hectic pace and responsibility his days – and imagination bring him in between, one feels certain that this vision will be soon realized.

Despont is already looking ahead; this journey will continue with the pursuit of creating very large outdoor sculptures to interact and communicate with nature.

“Through the Moon Door,” will be on view at the Marlborough Chelsea from October 16th - November 8th 2008.
For more information call: 212-463-8632