Grand Couvert: Jonathan Gonzalez & Jason Galbut

On view through September 28, 2024

The Galbut Institute welcomes visitors to its upcoming exhibition Grand Couvert, opening August 3, 2024.

During the ancien régime at Versailles, the French royal family dined on lavish meals served in gold and silver dishes in front of princesses and duchesses who sat on sumptuously upholstered stools, while other courtiers stood around them. This ceremony was known as the Grand Couvert.

The Galbut Institute’s exhibition reimagines a 21st century mise en scène of the Grand Couvert. It presents a monumental dining table and stools designed and produced by Jonathan Gonzalez, and a large- scale painting by Jason Galbut. The artworks provide a vocabulary of opulence and grandeur for the current age.

The expansive surface of Gonzalez’s table is made of solid walnut planks rich in tone and depth. A series of champagne metal legs polished to a high golden sheen support the surface. Stools crowned by plush satin velvet cushions surround the table. The surface crests into a streamlined crescendo at its center, acknowledging the heights of art deco’s achievements while pointing to a new futurism.

Galbut’s painting Renovation shares similar values. Thick folds of grey paint cascade down the canvas’s surface, securing a series of linen rolls held together by gold paint. These rolls support planks of wood, which in turn support archival canvas panels framing rectangular pieces of felt. Consolidated by vibrant orange, this prismatic superstructure is conversely marked by an uncanny silence and absence, providing a space to begin anew.