Pharrell Williams and Dior collaborator Daniel Arsham’s latest art pairing
The American sculptor teams up with Moët & Chandon for a limited-edition Champagne that celebrates the centuries-old art of oenology.
There’s an obvious synergy between the worlds of fine art and fine wine. In the right hands, both are creative expressions of the mind, and the presence of wine in art has existed in the finest works for centuries. Sensory journeys across canvases, sculptures and other mediums have been echoed in the olfactory and ethereal expressions of wine, conjured by the most talented vignerons all over the world. And in Champagne, the artisans have been at work for centuries.
For the esteemed Champagne house of Moët & Chandon, birthday number 280 demanded a special celebration. And so, to mark the anniversary, the house announced its first collaboration with American artist Daniel Arsham.
It’s a fitting partnership. Arsham’s architectural and sculptural style frequently references antiquity in his work, rendering them from a contemporary viewpoint through decay, corrosion, and other forms of manipulation. “Sculpture is a manipulation of materials,” says Arsham, “and the manipulation that transforms the blends of wine from different eras is much like sculpture.”
The New York-based artist has worked with no shortage of luminaries across a broad spectrum of fashion, design and music, from Dior and Rimowa to Pharrell Williams and Usher. Each of his collaborations challenge traditional artistic boundaries, blending his distinctive aesthetic with diverse creative realms.
The pairing of Moët & Chandon and Arsham brought its own set of learnings, with the creative reflecting on the similarities between the worlds of art and wine: “I realised how nuanced the process of Champagne-making is,” he says, “and how the layering of different years and harvests resembles the art of composing a sculpture.”
Arsham took the stained-glass windows that illuminate the famous cellars of Moët & Chandon in Épernay as his starting point, using the 200-year-old work of glass painter Félix Gaudin to inspire his celebratory creation. “I knew those had to be included in some capacity when I started this project,” the artist says. “It’s details like those that I look for, which I hope bring a unique element to my work.”
The final result is a large relief, cast in white resin – a nod to the famous chalky soils that form the hills of the region – and features mythological figures, vines and even two putti, or winged babies, which gracefully hold a plaque with the house’s logo. The entire piece measures three metres in width and just on one metre in height. While it now has pride of place in the Moët & Chandon headquarters in Épernay, this work also inspired the creation of a capsule of 85 limited-edition bottles for releases around the world in celebration of the new Champagne. These small bottles are miniature works of art in themselves.
This new wine, Collection Impériale Création No. 1, represents the pinnacle of the house’s approach to Champagne. It is a singular Champagne, crafted from an assemblage of seven remarkable vintages, aged through varied maturation processes, some in oak casks and others on the lees, in bottles.
“The intricate assemblage begins with the fresh 2013 grand vintage,” says Moët & Chandon’s Marie-Christine Osselin, “complemented by the refined 2012, the powerful 2010, tense 2008, full-bodied 2006, the lively 2000 … and finished with the elegant 2004.”
Just as there is great beauty in art and wine, there is also an inevitable association with time. “We created Collection Impériale Création No. 1, as a Champagne crafted for eternity,” Osselin says. “[It’s] an artistic endeavour made today, shaped by traditions of the past, but intended to go on well into the future.”
This story is from the June issue of WISH.
