In the space of Carpenters Workshop Gallery in New York City, cast white bronze and hand-painted sculpted Murano glass come together in an installation that balances the line between concrete and mimetism. Aggressively organic and only slightly sci-fi, Vincenzo De Cotiis’ multi-part spatial composition harkens back to Monet’s later landscapes, which became increasingly abstract as cataracts captured his attention. “Je Marchais Pieds Nus Dans L’Étang,” on view through February 13, is as compelling as a painting: a lily pond reimagined through sculpture.
Originally on view during Milan Design Week, the show arrived in New York late last year and was fully realized: a cohesive, three-dimensional abstracted environment consisting of 50 unique works. Moving through the show is, as the title (translated: “I walked barefoot in the pond”) suggests, like wading through an imagined swampy dreamscape full of reflections and shapes that rise and shift as your point of view changes. There’s no solid visual anchor here, no story; a specially composed ambient soundtrack deepens the enchantment and invites the viewer to experience the work at a meditative pace.
De Cotiis has described the water lily as a motif that is both “serene and restless,” and his works embrace that duality. Skeletal stems extend and float, and polished surfaces are reminiscent not just of the flower, but of something foreign, creating an eerie sense of tension between solidity and translucency, stillness and movement. Where Monet captured abstracted worlds on canvas, De Cotiis does so in space.
It is a pleasure to see how design and art merge so completely. “His approach to materials often feels otherworldly, creating reflective surfaces and transforming imperfection and patina into sources of beauty,” Carpenters Workshop Gallery founders Julien Lombrail and Loïc Le Gaillard told Observer when we caught up with them after the show’s opening to learn more about “Je Marchais Pieds Nus Dans L’Étang” and its genesis.
De Cotiis draws inspiration from Monet’s late water lily landscapes, where vision dissolves into abstraction; How does this exhibition extend or transform that line for a contemporary audience?
Vincenzo De Cotiis has reimagined a timeless masterpiece for a modern age. In this exhibition, Monet’s water scene becomes a sculptural landscape, a space in which objects made of glass and bronze create a fluid, immersive experience of light and nature. De Cotiis therefore embraces the evocative, transcendental character of the water lilies and expresses this through a contemporary sculptural language.
With 50 unique works collected as one cohesive environment, the works come together as a landscape; how did you deal with the tension between individual pieces and the collective installation?
“Je Marchais Pieds Nus Dans L’Étang” is presented as a unique, coherent installation; however, it consists of a multitude of individual works of art. In addition to what is shown in the exhibition itself, this oeuvre includes a total of approximately 50 unique works. For the exhibition, these sculptural elements come together to contribute to the overall experience of the installation, creating the feeling of wading barefoot through an imaginary landscape. At the same time, De Cotiis has designed each piece with an individual meaning and identity. This means that the works, taken individually or collectively, evoke powerful ideas about materiality, light, abstraction and imagination.
In his practice, De Cotiis often speaks about memory, distortion and transformation; How do these ideas manifest themselves most clearly for you in this particular exhibition?
The exhibition is largely about material transformation. The sculptures appear as enigmatic creatures in distorted shapes; they have surreal, skeletal stems, much like the elongated, flowing legs of water lilies that move beneath the surface. As viewers navigate the installation, their perception of these objects changes with movement and proximity. This dynamic spatial composition, anchored in movement, explores how memory and perception can be distorted or transformed.
The exhibition asks viewers to slow down, notice subtle shifts in light and take in nuances; How does such a sensory experience resonate in New York, a city defined by speed?
Through organic forms and varying reflections, this installation is designed to evoke a contemplative sense of nature. The Cotiis captures the essence of water through the use of painted Murano glass and cast white bronze. Light refracts across the surfaces of the sculptures, creating an interplay of opacity and translucency. This is especially important in the context of fast-paced urban life, which threatens to disconnect us from the transformative power of the natural world. Mimicking the feel of a pond, where ethereal creatures drift, dissolve and reappear, the installation invites viewers to slow down and consider the forces of nature that shape our environment.
What do you think De Cotiis contributes to current conversations about materiality and the future of sculpture practice?
He brings a distinctive sculptural language to contemporary discourse, shaped by parallels of space and time. He is particularly interested in how old idioms can merge with futuristic forms and expressions. His approach to materials often feels otherworldly, creating reflective surfaces and transforming imperfection and patina into sources of beauty. In a design landscape where age-old materials are constantly being reinvented, De Cotiis suggests that handmade objects can function as worn-out relics or as visions of future worlds.
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