Saint-Étienne (Loire). What do artists with such diverse practices as Pierre Soulages, Erik Dietman, Jana Sterbak and Giuseppe Penone have in common? The answer lies in Marseille, the Joliette district, where the International Center for Research on Glass and Visual Arts (Cirva) took up residence in 1986. Since its opening three years earlier in Aix-en-Provence, the art center has welcomed artists from all over the world to carry out research projects on glass. Some works produced during these residencies joined public collections such as the Cnap and the Center Pompidou, and the others are still at Cirva, which maintains a collection of more than 700 objects. To present part of this remarkable ensemble, the two curators, Stanislas Colodiet, director of Cirva and Joris Thomas, head of the Design Promotion department at MAMC+, opted for the only UNESCO creative city of design: Saint-Étienne.
Pushing the limits of matter
The MAMC exhibition, which brings together some 200 objects, combines research projects and the history of the art center. Cirva appears as a research laboratory on the potential of matter from a technical and formal point of view. The surface of the Table lamp (2013-2016) by Normal Studio, for example, displays the imprint of the fibers of the textile mold in which it was blown. At Cirva, however, there is no obligation to produce a finished product at the end of the residency. For five years, the Bouroullec brothers developed a purely experimental approach, inventing, among other things, a “modeling glass paste”, while Pierre Soulages developed some 300 different types of glass for the stained glass windows of the Sainte-Foy abbey in Conques. But “Glass beyond matter” also presents very accomplished pieces, of great plastic quality, like the Little Red Angel of Marseille (1991-1993) by James Lee Byars, an arabesque drawn by 333 modeled and polished glass balls, andAmulet (Havea Afaelia) n°2 (2023) by Sopheap Pich, a monumental necklace inspired by Thai amulets, where blown glass replaces rosewood seeds.
Giuseppe Penone, The green radiance of the bosco1987 and Nail and Leaves, 1986-88, view of the exhibition at MAMC+.
© Aurélien Mole
© Adagp Paris 2026
A collective adventure
The exhibition aptly shows that Cirva’s productions are the result of close collaboration between artists and glassmakers. Indeed, few artists touch glass: most of them produce sketches or paintings which are then transposed by art artisans. The preparatory work presented alongside the glass works allows us to assess the interpretive dimension of glass work, the craftsmen having to translate a two-dimensional projection into a volume. The two commissioners pay tribute to the many technicians who have passed through the Joliette workshops by crediting them in the cartels. A first, and the fruit of long research in the art center’s archives.
In addition to its undeniable visual and museographic qualities – the works are superbly highlighted by the scenography, all in shades of gray, and by the care given to the lighting, which reveals the work on the transparency of the glass – the exhibition is a very beautiful ground for initiation into the glass arts thanks to the numerous cartels defining techniques and processes and the archive videos punctuating the route, which allow you to have an overview of the successive stages of glass work.
