User:Anna59Jutta/Jacques Toussaint

Jacques Toussaint (Paris, 6 January 1947) is a French artist and designer, known for his immersive art installations.

Biographical note
After leaving the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts in Paris, at a time when teaching had been interrupted by the student protests of May 1968, Toussaint embarked on his artistic career in Italy in 1971.

During that period Toussaint was also active in the design world, and for several years was consultant to brands such as Espò, Bernini, Interflex and Matteo Grassi. In 1985 he set up, with Livio Luteri, the brand Atelier, to produce remakes of works by historic designers such as Alvar Aalto, Werner Max Moser, Alfred Roth and Giuseppe Terragni. Atelier also developed projects by designers such as Toshiyuki Kita, Ross Littell and Verner Panton.

From 1993 he created collections of objects in recycled paper, mirrors, steel and wood for a number of firms. These materials moreover were also the ones favoured by Toussaint in his own artistic work ,which evolved parallel to his occupation as a designer and earned him exhibitions at various galleries, museums and art fairs in Italy, France and Poland.

In 1998 Toussaint established the Piccolo Museo del Progetto, a cultural association located in Pieve del Grappa. Its purpose is to document and display projects by designers operating in Milan from the late 1970s to the end of the 1990s, collected by him during his long career as consultant to the companies Bernini, Matteo Grassi, Dimensione Fuoco, Interflex and Arbos. Alternating at the Piccolo Museo del Progetto are presentations and exhibitions of drawings, prototypes and furniture by designers such as Tapani Aartomaa, Achille Castiglioni, Simo Heikkilä, Yrjö Kukkapuro, Ross Littell, Enzo Mari, Alessandro Mendini, Werner Max Moser and Alfred Roth. The Piccolo Museo del Progetto has furthermore arranged exhibitions and owns works by Renata Bonfanti, Candido Fior, Gianfranco Pardi, Emilio Tadini and Alessio Tasca. Also located at the Piccolo Museo del Progetto are the Edizioni del Piccolo Museo: a collection of furniture designed by Jacques Toussaint between the 1980s and 2000.

Around the year 2000 Toussaint took up blue neon lighting which gradually developed into immersive and primarily site-specific installations. According to the critic Luigi Cavadini, with these installations the artist seeks to bring about a form of estrangement in the spectator and induce them to meditate. Since 2014 Toussaint has integrated his immersive installations with video projections and sound components.

Toussaint in Museums
The Denver Art Museum, the Neue Sammlung – Design Museum in Munich, the Kunstgewerbemuseum – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, the Muzeum Narodowe in Poznan, the Museo Casabianca in Malo (and the CAMeC - Centro Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in La Spezia have acquired works by Toussaint for their collections.