MALA HIERBA

Following a two-year residency at the Manufacture Nationale de Sèvres, artist Iván Argote is presenting his creations at the Galerie de Sèvres in Paris as part of the partnership between Sèvres and the ADIAF.

The result of two years of research, experimentation, and close dialogue between Iván Argote and the Manufacture’s artisans, this collaboration has given rise to three series of works that explore our relationship to heritage, figures of power, and the delicate connections between people. The exhibition’s Spanish title, Mala Hierba, refers to weeds. Figuratively, it also refers to someone negative or harmful. 

Using a historic mold of the bust of Napoleon Bonaparte, dated 1804, after Chaudet (1763–1810), Iván Argote offers a bold reinterpretation of the imposing imperial figure. By cutting into the bust to transform it into an everyday object, the artist turns the political icon into an open space, presented in the exhibition as a vase holding flowers. This gesture is part of a recurring approach in Argote’s work: diluting power, opening up forms, letting the living in. 

The artist also reworks three vases drawn from the Sèvres Manufactory’s repertoire of forms. He personally paints an unexpected figure that he is particularly fond of: the pigeon. A millennia-old companion to our cities yet often unloved, the bird occupies a central place in Argote’s work, as evidenced by Dinosaur, his monumental sculpture installed on the High Line in New York. For Sèvres, he has imagined small scenes inspired by Etruscan imagery—a clear reference to archaeological ceramics. They depict moments of everyday life. The vases are then brought to life with bouquets of local flowers, introducing a living, regional, and ecological dimension. 

The artist has developed an entirely new work inspired by his Skin series, in which he layers materials to reveal texts evoking contact and relationships with others. Crafted in porcelain with Sèvres’s blue and 24-karat gold effects, the work is mounted on a metal structure designed by the Manufacture’s workshops. Driven by words that evoke the body, possession, and skin, this piece extends his exploration of the sensory relationships between beings, in a form that is at once material, poetic, and deeply collective.