Jillian Mayer Will Channel the Hypnotic Hues of Bisquit & Dubouché for Frieze Los Angeles

At Frieze Los Angeles 2022, artist Jillian Mayer presents Glass Room, an immersive installation exploring glass as an amorphous and transformative material. Drawing inspiration directly from Bisquit & Dubouché’s approach to cognac-making and its results, Glass Room will be a study of transformation. Commissioned by the historic cognac house, the collaboration marks Bisquit & Dubouché’s U.S. launch and role as partner of Frieze Los Angeles.

Full of historical associations while ubiquitous in current technology, Mayer sees glass as a complex, contradictory substance, in her words: ‘a fragile material that can be used for protection, a clear material that can be used to obscure’ and one which reveals the world ‘not in polished squares, but in messy, overlapping, contradictory compositions.’

Inspired in part from the hypnotic ritual of swirling Bisquit & Dubouché in a small glass, visitors to Glass Room will experience an arena of striking forms, glowing glasses and shifting hues of amber, burgundy and sepia. 'When I saw the rich colours of Bisquit & Dubouché swirling', said Mayer, 'I instantly felt a connection: to the materials, to that world, and to the colours themselves. I wanted to be surrounded by that warm colour palette — and then I started to think about what it would be like to have a room of these materials.'

Elements of Glass Room will include functional sculptures, a chandelier and a light box inspired by the form of the windows of the Château Bisquit in Cognac, France. This array will be complemented by Mayer's use of copper, a metal she chose for its chemical properties. ‘The only metal that I use with glass is copper, as it does not impact or influence the colour of the glass,’ explains Mayer. ‘I was excited to find out that copper is a key component of Bisquit & Dubouché’s distillation process, just as glass is integral to the final presentation of the distiller’s art.’ ‘Glass, heat, copper,’ she adds, ‘all these raw materials are the same materials I’m utilizing in my work. There was never a moment where I felt unsure of this concept. I felt it, I saw it, and I knew what it should be.'

Based in Miami, where she was born, Jillian Mayer’s work is shaped by the environment of Florida as a landscape subject to intense change, and a home for idealists and cultural outliers of different stripes. Her recent solo exhibitions include Crisp-Ellert Art Museum, St. Augustine, USA; Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, USA (2019); Kunst Aarhus, Denmark (2019); University of Buffalo Art Museum, USA (2018); Postmasters Gallery, New York, USA (2018) and Pérez Art Museum, Miami, USA (2016). Unveiled at the opening of Frieze Los Angeles 2022, Glass Room will coincide with Mayer’s new exhibition at David Castillo Gallery, Miami and is her first presentation in L.A. after showing at LAX Art in 2016.

Like Bisquit & Dubouché – founded over 200 years ago by Frenchmen Alexandre Bisquit and Adrien Dubouché, and now heralding a new chapter including a brand relaunch and new design – Mayer’s Glass Room is intended to be both rich in heritage and fiercely contemporary, embodying an aesthetic set apart from the norm.

Visit Glass Room, in collaboration with Bisquit & Dubouché, at Frieze Los Angeles, which returns with over 100 of the world’s leading galleries February 17-20, 2022, at a new location 9900 Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills, adjacent to The Beverly Hilton hotel. 

Main image: Work in progress (detail) of Jillian Mayer, Glass Room, 2022. Photography by the artist