Jean Nouvel: Triptyques, Gagosian Gallery

 Pritzker prize-winning architect and renowned designer Jean Nouvel is making a return to London. Always one to create a stir with every new project, his latest show at Gagosian's Mayfair site will reveal his much-anticipated series of coloured triptyque-mirrors. 

Nouvel is notoriously daring when it comes to colour. You may have already seen some of his architectural designs: the Gherkin-esque, skyscraper Torre Agbar that dominates the skyline of Barcelona and lights up in red and blue by night; or his bold 2010 geometric pavilion for the Serpentine Gallery that dissected the green space of Kensington Gardens with an uncompromising red. Visitors on both the interior and exterior were engulfed in the inescapable colour, transforming their sense of place. 

It seems fitting that Nouvel would take his penchant for immersive colour to the mirror – a medium that captures the world around us. One might expect that he is playing upon the age-old metaphor of art as a mirror to life. But his architectural works always seem to push their own limits; they set up a dialogue between object and context. For Nouvel, these sculptural assemblages don’t just duplicate our surroundings, but “establish new meaning” through colour. We are told that “the mirror is a piece that you want to live with, in which you reflect intimate images”. It seems that we can expect Nouvel’s triptyques to show a little more than a straightforward reflection. 

The exhibition is Nouvel’s second solo-show at the Gagosian Gallery. The first, which was held at the Gagosian Paris branch in 2011, concentrated on a collection of Nouvel’s furniture designs. Both exhibitions have been collaborations with Galerie Patrick Seguin, situated in Paris’s Bastille, which features French modernist architects such as Le Corbusier and Jean Prouvé as well as Nouvel.

If you want to join the opening reception night, head to Gagosian's Davies Street branch in Mayfair on April 15 from 6pm-8pm. You never know what you might catch a glimpse of in these mirrors.