85 limited edition sculptural "over-bottles" and one monumental piece in the cellars of Épernay, France to honor an exquisite new champagne
Daniel Arsham’s Moët & Chandon Collection Impériale Creation No. 1 Collaboration
85 limited edition sculptural “over-bottles” and one monumental piece in the cellars of Épernay, France to honor an exquisite new champagne
The inaugural champagne in Moët & Chandon‘s milestone Collection Impériale range, aptly entitled Creation No. 1, has finally entered the US market after a splashy, sought after European debut. The effervescent liquid, a distinct blend of seven hand-selected vintages overseen by esteemed cellar master Benoît Gouez, aims to epitomize the maison’s majesty through the concept of “haute oenologie.” It’s merely a first sip of what’s to come as Moët & Chandon plans for their 300th anniversary. To accompany the release, conceptual artist and longtime COOL HUNTING favorite Daniel Arsham designed 85 limited edition, oversized bottles (which can encase an entire bottle of Collection Impériale Creation No. 1) and one unique sculptral work that now adorns the walls of the Galerie Impériale in Moët & Chandon’s historic cellars.
This spectacular one-of-one work is visible, at the end of a long, low-lit tunnel, to those lucky enough to explore the cellars of Moët & Chandon—surrounded by corridors filled with champagne bottles quietly awaiting their time to emerge. “The artwork was created specifically for Moët. It’s now permanently installed in the cellar,” Arsham tells us in his SoHo living room. “When I went to Moët for the first time, I walked through the vineyard with Benoît and then toured the cellars. There are miles of tunnels beneath the ground. When you enter, there’s a staircase that descends. You pass underneath a big stained-glass artwork that’s probably 150 years old. In that piece, there is a view of the original house, Château de Saran, and there are these cherubs and rolling vineyard hills.” Arsham looked to this for inspiration, transforming the image and sculpting it in relief.
“I wanted to nod to something that was part of the brand that hadn’t been talked about yet or shown by a large group of people,” Arsham continues. “Benoît said that he’d walked under the original work thousands of times but over the years he stopped paying attention to it. It just became part of the cellar. I wanted to give it new life.”
Not all Moët collectors will find their way to the maison’s cellars in Épernay, France. As such, the scope of Arsham’s collaboration included the oversized bottles. “They’re basically a case for a bottle that’s also a sculpture of a bottle. A bottle slots into it from below. Then the bottom screws on,” Arsham says. “I also knew I wanted to do the case. Every time that I’ve done a project, I think a lot about the packaging. The case here is almost part of the piece. In fact, there’s a secondary crate on the outside of the art case because people don’t want it damaged.” For the first case, Arsham created a shallow relief thart was then cast in bronze. It’s inset into the exterior of the case.
Arsham himself decided to unveil the limited edition collaboration to the US market in his private SoHo residence—a wonderland of mesmerizing, often playful art and design—complete with near endless Collection Impériale Creation No. 1. “When we first launched this project, we did it in Paris with a series of intimate dinners instead of one giant dinner where you don’t get to talk to anyone. It was split up over a couple of nights,” he explains. “We’ve done the same thing here, keeping the group to 18 people so that I get to speak to everyone and demonstrate that there’s a different feeling around this collaboration.”
“It’s so nice to be in my home,” Arsham says, glass in hand (with a Hublot watch featuring a green sapphire glass case on his wrist). “All of my artwork is already here. Everyone can understand the context. It was a nice gesture because this project has been so easy and so rewarding. It’s not just that it’s Moët, a global brand, but it’s been a personal experience working with Benoît to create something meaningful.”