Hubert Barrère : Illusion. La métis et l’artifice

In this exhibition carefully curated in Maison Artcurial, French stylist and corset-maker Hubert Barrère created a body of a dozen artworks combining scrumptious materials with high-end techniques. Those surprising art objects represented the best of contemporary art, fashion, creation and fine craftsmanship. Hubert Barrère, director of French embroidery house Maison Lesage, gives life to embroidery, a unique means to “divert material.” Each material he selected is transcribed and interpreted through exquisite pieces of embroidery – beads, feathers, sequin turn into scales, snake-skin or precious gems. Like chimeric incarnations, these unbridled materials is revealed to be the illusion of its own alter ego, its own past incarnation. Inspired by ancient Greek statuary, and by Athena in particular, Hubert Barrère dedicated this collection to the goddess of artists and craftsmen. Each artworks paid homage to one of the goddess’s iconic attributes.