Piet Hein Eek Thinks Outside the Box for Ruinart Blanc de Blancs
Dutch artist Piet Hein Eek applies his playful side to
Ruinart Blanc de Blancs’ distinctive golden bottle in this short film by
Benoît Millot. Ruinart was the first Champagne house to make the change
from shipping bottles in baskets to wooden crates in 1769, in a bid to
protect their precious cargo. Since commissioning Alfonse Mucha to
create a poster for the brand in 1895, and having become the official
champagne partner for Art Basel and Art Basel Miami in 2010, Ruinart has
developed strong links with the worlds of contemporary art, recently
collaborating with individuals such as Maarten Baas and Gideon Rubin.
Piet Hein Eek, who runs a studio with fellow designer Nob Ruijgrok in
Eindhoven, has established a signature style creating one-off objects
through old pieces of wood and has exhibited worldwide at venues
including the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Salone del Mobile
in Milan. The unique trapezoid boxes were crafted with pale wood found
and collected by Piet Hein Eek, and perfectly house the bottles while
inspiring an abundance of ways the shape can be used to create other
objects. One of these is a monumental, six-meter-wide arch that Piet
Hein Eek revealed at this year’s Art Basel, made to house over 240
discretely illuminated bottles.
