Garouste & Bonetti – Design de collection | Galerie Ketabi Bourdet

Elizabeth Garouste and Mattia Bonetti are among the designers who profoundly reshaped French design from the 1980s onwards. Their collaboration began in 1980, with the design of Le Privilège, a restaurant and club located within the Palace in Paris, then one of the most emblematic venues on the Parisian cultural scene. This first project already revealed a singular universe in which furniture became a vehicle for a free, theatrical and resolutely anti-minimalist imagination.

At a time when international design favoured clean lines, industrial materials and functional rationality, Garouste & Bonetti championed a radically different aesthetic. Drawing on references to the Baroque, Surrealism, tribal arts, literature and the decorative arts, their creations celebrate irregularity, colour, fantasy and the richness of materials. Each piece of furniture becomes a narrative, a functional sculpture in which wrought iron, bronze, carved wood, resin, ceramics and gold leaf engage in dialogue with exceptional craftsmanship.

Their work quickly attracted the attention of collectors, institutions and leading fashion houses. They designed, among other projects, the interiors of Christian Lacroix boutiques, and developed projects for Nina Ricci, Daum and Gien, as well as numerous private interiors. Their works, produced as unique pieces or limited editions, soon became major references in collectible design. Among their best-known creations are the Chaise Barbare, Table Rocher, Canapé Mars and Chaise Prince Impérial, now held in major public and private collections.

In 1991, the duo received the Designer of the Year award at the Salon International du Meuble de Paris. Their works gradually entered the collections of the Centre Pompidou, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Guggenheim Museum in New York and numerous international institutions, cementing their place among the leading figures of late 20th-century design.

Although Elizabeth Garouste and Mattia Bonetti pursued separate careers from the early 2000s onwards, their collaboration remains one of the most influential chapters in the history of contemporary design. Their visual language continues to inspire new generations of designers through its formal freedom, its embrace of the decorative arts and its rejection of aesthetic conventions.

The Ketabi Bourdet gallery champions this exceptional legacy by presenting historic works by the duo, including some of their most emblematic creations. Through its exhibitions and participation in leading international design fairs, the gallery contributes to renewed recognition of the importance of Garouste & Bonetti in the emergence of contemporary collectible design.