In storytelling there is a ‘rule’ that things should occur in threes to be memorable, to give a sense of arc to a story. In some sense, the first is a statement of things to come, the second a test of determination both in the hero and the situation. It really is that bad/good/purposeful. The final third suggests a completing event at which point things have found a new balance. A stable platform for the conclusion, where an expectation is set with the reader, but will it stand up in the closing moments?
However, in art this need not be the case. And in art furniture? Well, a certain symmetry is assumed but can three pieces create a sense of story?
Press Release: Trilogies of Artistic Exploration
Trilogies of Artistic Exploration
Group exhibition
17 September 2025 – 9 January 2026
Galerie Negropontes presents Trilogie, une histoire d’explorations (Trilogies of Artistic Exploration) a group exhibition inviting eight artists with distinctive creative voices. Each artist has been invited to create a series of three works, based on a ternary format that explores repetition, variation and rhythm in the creative process. Three works: an original creation, its variations, a multifaceted vision of a single artistic gesture. The works on show reveal a particular attention to noble, raw and precious materials, and reflect the richness of artists’ practices: sculpture, art furniture, installation.
Gianluca Pacchioni
Gianluca Pacchioni presents three elegant, sculptural stands and three side tables. Marble and onyx are delicately set into slender bronze structures. On one side, a smooth, vibrant, and colourful surface invites the gaze to lose itself in a play of subtle nuances. On the other, raw stone is mirrored in a polished metal plate, amplifying the irregular texture and the telluric power of the material.
Mircea Cantor
Mircea Cantor sculpts white, black, and grey marble into enigmatic forms of empty gifts. His works, Future Gift, drawn from a monumental 2008 installation, play on the paradox of giving: a gift without content, symbolising both promise and potential. This emptiness becomes a space of openness – an invitation to project a shared aspiration.
Sculpted from transparent glass, the three works in the Perpetual series speak a mineral, silent language. Simultaneously architectural and organic, each piece masterfully captures, fractures, and diffracts light, playing with shadow and reflection as if manipulating time itself. In this series, Perrin & Perrin continue to explore the balance between structure and chaos, and fullness and void. The rhythm of the volumes evokes both a musical cadence and a slow breath. Through these forms – at once solid and ephemeral – they sculpt a presence, a sense of time that is neither past nor future, but one that endures in matter, in space, and in the gaze.
Benjamin Poulanges builds fragile, poetic sandcastles in ceramic – solidified memories of play and imagination. These previously unseen works continue his subtle exploration of reimagined forms, giving rise to new and original constructions.
With meticulous attention to detail, Éric de Dormael creates works that are both delicate and surprising. Here, he shapes plaster or papier-mâché, and his gesture transforms the material into a dreamlike architecture composed of geometric forms. In each of his three sculptures, Pyrite blanche, Pyrite noire, and Crayonné, a silent dialogue emerges with the viewer’s imagination, offering a truly contemplative experience.
Mauro Mori
Mauro Mori presents Scudo, a trilogy of monolithic vases in black marble, white and red. These vases change shape depending on the angle from which they are viewed, revealing ever-changing perspectives and silhouettes.
Ulrika Liljedahl
Ulrika Liljedahl weaves vibrant strands of horsehair to create pieces that are imbued with movement and energy. Their textures shift and shimmer, drawing the eye with their magnetic presence. Each finely woven piece blends the delicacy of craft with a bold, expressive spirit, where tradition meets transformation.
Jean-Christophe Malaval
Jean-Christophe Malaval is presenting his Atlantis vases – one bronze and two ceramics – in two colours for this exhibition. Inspired by the tentacles of an octopus, these organic shapes oscillate between science fiction and mythology, combining dynamism and mystery combining dynamism and mystery, somewhere between land and sea.
Jean-Christophe Malaval, Atlantis, 2021. Ceramic vase, numbered 1/20, H 8.2 x D 9.4 in Jean-Christophe Malaval, Atlantis, 2021. Ceramic vase, numbered 1/20, H 8.2 x D 9.4 in Jean-Christophe Malaval, Atlantis, 2021. Patined bronze vase, numbered 2/8, H 8.2 x D 9.4 in
Finally, a tapestry by Manufacture Pinton, entitled Carré jaune sur fond jaune, based on a cartoon by Joseph and Anni Albers, will resonate with the works by Perrin & Perrin. Admirers of the Albers’ universe, these creations extend a sensitive dialogue between modernist heritage and contemporary creation.
Through these eight trilogies, the exhibition traces a nuanced and evocative journey, inviting the viewer to pause, contemplate, and feel. Each series, conceived as a triptych, explores the balance between unity and diversity. Together, they form a micro-narrative, a polyphony of gestures, materials and imaginations, like so many moments suspended in the material and in the artistic process.
Galerie Negropontes
“Trilogies of Artistic Exploration”
From 17 September 2025 to 9 January 2026
Paris, 14-16 rue Jean-Jacques Rousseau 75001, Paris, France
The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance. – Aristotle
