Since its inception, Nouvel has been interested in collaborating and co-creating glass pieces with significant conceptual and technical value, joining efforts not only with designers or architects but also with various artists such as Jan Hendrix, Francisco Toledo, Jorge Yaspik, Tania Candiani, and Edgar Orlaineta.

The connection between Edgar Orlaineta and Nouvel has been fruitful, giving rise to different pieces and limited editions that main- tain the distinctive hallmark of the sculptor’s artworks and the manu- facturing and constant interest in innovation from the latter. Since 2015, they have developed and produced five series together: Katsina, Katsina Unique, Katsina Omaw, Katsina Nata Aska, and, most recently, Forma.

With a background in painting and sculpture, Orlaineta can abstract various concepts and imagery from modern architecture and material culture spanning different periods, starting from research sup- ported by history, anthropology, and ethnography. His artistic approach displaces imaginaries like the kachinas collected by architects and art- ists, such as Alexander Girard, André Bretón, and even earlier, Eugène Delacroix, in archives and historical magazines.

“It’s an exercise that recalls the famous phrase by Louis Sullivan, later popularized by Mies van der Rohe, ‘Form follows function,’ but in this case, I describe it as ‘Form follows the tool.’”

The conceptual development and the process of trans- forming images and objects –collected or produced in modern times– into glass pieces involve a reflective abstraction of characteristics, in- corporating techniques, particularly woodturning, to obtain prototypes and create tools like rotating molds that ultimately give glass the shape of metaphors related to kachinas, bowls, jars, tumblers, etc. Regarding this process, Orlaineta meditates as follows:

“It’s an exercise that recalls the famous phrase by Louis Sullivan, later popularized by Mies van der Rohe, ‘Form follows function,’ but in this case, I describe it as ‘Form follows the tool.’”

Through a study and homage to the culture of indigenous peoples and even certain stages of human material culture, Edgar Orlaineta’s work leads us to think about the intersection between the boundaries of craftsmanship, plastic arts, and design, where archetypes inhabit forms and become embodied in material objects through manual labor.

Finally, the special editions, developed in collaboration with Nouvel, provide an opportunity to reflect on Orlaineta’s production in the context of works that border art and design. They also explore glass’s technical and artisanal pos- sibilities as a flexible material capable of expressing chromatic play.

Edgar Orlaineta : From the Modernist Imaginary to Glass

“It’s an exercise that recalls the famous phrase by Louis Sullivan, later popularized by Mies van der Rohe, ‘Form follows function,’ but in this case, I describe it as ‘Form follows the tool.’”

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