By Ema Lynnx
In 2026, the Champagne House Ruinart The exhibition continues its long-standing dialogue between contemporary art, heritage, and the living world by inviting Tadashi Kawamata, a major figure on the international art scene. At 4 rue des Crayères in Reims, his permanent installations are not presented as standalone sculptures but as experiences to be traversed. They are open architectures, vantage points, temporary refuges—forms that do not impose themselves on the viewer but transform the way the space is perceived.
This encounter goes beyond the framework of an artistic commission. It connects two temporalities: that of champagne, shaped by the slowness, attention to climate and the patience of the cellars, and that of an artist who, for more than forty years, has explored the memory of sites and the fragility of human constructions.
From Hokkaido to the international stage
Born in 1953 on the island of Hokkaido, Tadashi Kawamata He grew up in an environment where the presence of wood, vernacular architecture, and a close connection to nature shaped his imagination from a very young age. This material and sensory relationship with the world would never leave him. After studying at the Tokyo University of the Arts, he quickly moved away from traditional sculpture formats to develop a practice directly linked to the places and contexts in which it takes shape.
His participation in the Venice Biennale in 1982 marked a decisive turning point. It immediately established him in an international dimension and opened the way to a series of major invitations, documenta in Kassel, São Paulo Biennale, Sydney Biennale, which consecrated a singular approach: an art that is not conceived in the studio but in reality, in contact with territories, materials and communities.
Based between Tokyo and Paris, Kawamata creates an unclassifiable body of work, situated at the boundary of architecture, sculpture, design and social intervention.
Building with the memory of places
Suspended cabins, precarious walkways, piles of planks, monumental nests clinging to facades: his formal vocabulary is immediately recognizable. Raw wood and salvaged elements become the material for complex, often spectacular, and always deeply connected architectures.
These structures appear temporary, exposed, and vulnerable. They do not seek permanence but embrace their transient nature. Through them, Kawamata questions our need for stability and reminds us that all human construction remains subject to natural forces.
His work never consists of adding a form to space. He modifies the way we inhabit what already exists. He changes scales, shifts perspectives, forces us to look up, to slow down.
A collective and urban practice
While his works have been exhibited in major institutions such as the Centre Pompidou, Serpentine Gallery, MACBA, HKW, and MAAT, Kawamata is also an artist deeply connected to the city. Many of his projects are carried out with residents, students, or local collectives. The construction site becomes a moment of sharing, a process as much as a result.
This collaborative dimension transforms the work into a human experience. It makes architecture a social act.
Reims, the discovery of a different rhythm
In Reims, the landscape offers a radical counterpoint to his urban interventions. What first captures his attention is not the structure of the site but its atmosphere: the mist above the vines, the circulation of the air, the changing warmth of the light, the discreet presence of birds and insects.
As with each of his projects, everything begins with drawing. Sketches, models, perspective studies. Thought passes through the hand before becoming volume.
Three structures emerge from this observation phase: Cabin, Nest and ObservatoryThree ways to become part of the landscape and experience it physically. Located in the park at 4 rue des Crayères, they invite you to gain some perspective to feel the variations of climate and weather.
Ruinart, a culture of long-term thinking
This approach finds a natural echo in the identity of the house. Founded in 1729, Ruinart is the oldest champagne house. Born from the intuition of Dom Thierry Ruinart and brought to fruition by Nicolas Ruinart, it built its style around Chardonnay, a grape variety of light and precision.
In the Gallo-Roman chalk cellars of Reims, a UNESCO World Heritage site, wines age slowly in a mineral darkness. This relationship to time, to the gradual transformation of matter, echoes the work of Kawamata, whose works evolve with the seasons and natural conditions.
Since the late 19th century, when the house commissioned a work from Alphonse Mucha, Ruinart has maintained a constant dialogue with artists. Today, this link continues through projects that explore the relationship between creation and the environment.
An experience to be lived rather than watched
Kawamata's goal is not to produce a spectacular form but to create a situation. Climbing into the observatory, sitting in the cabin, looking at the landscape from the nest: these simple gestures become the work itself.
The visitor ceases to be a spectator. He becomes an active participant in the installation.
Long before environmental issues became central to artistic discourse, Kawamata was already working with repurposed materials and exploring the precariousness of human constructions. This dimension is not theoretical: it is constitutive of his practice.
He does not represent nature. He works with it.
This is undoubtedly where the strength of the collaboration between Tadashi Kawamata and Maison Ruinart lies: in their ability to bring together two distinct ways of experiencing time. One, patiently crafted in the darkness of the cellars, where the Chardonnay gains precision with each passing year. The other, built from raw wood, exposed to the seasons, destined to evolve, to transform, to age with the landscape.
Nothing here is static. The artwork changes with the weather, with the light, with the growth of the trees. The place itself, too, is rediscovered from these suspended viewpoints. The visitor becomes an active participant in this transformation: they climb, sit, observe, breathe. They take their time, a gesture that has become rare, almost precious.
In a world where luxury has long been defined by possession and display, Ruinart offers a different path. A luxury of perception, of sensory knowledge, of connection to the living world. The experience is no longer limited to a tasting or a work of art: it becomes a way of inhabiting a place.
What Tadashi Kawamata is building in Champagne is not just an architecture of wood. It is an architecture of perception.
Excessive alcohol consumption is dangerous. Drink in moderation.
Photos: Maison Ruinart
