Journal

La Nuit: A Work by Simon Buret for Rinck

As part of its Opus Memoria collection, Rinck unveils a collaboration with artist Simon Buret: La Nuit, a monumental bronze sculpture on view beneath the iconic glass roof of the Grand Palais during Art Paris.

A SHARED VISION ENGENDERS AN ARTISTIC ENCOUNTER

It was while Rinck’s CEO and Artistic Director Valentin Goux was conducting visual research – somewhere between aesthetic exploration and a quest for inspiration – that he discovered the work of artist Simon Buret on Instagram. Drawn to Simon’s pictorial sensibility, Valentin acquired one of the artist’s first paintings. A few years later, a collaboration naturally took shape. “I greatly admire the work of artists. When I admire something, I want to collaborate,” Valentin shares. Thus, the Opus Memoria collection, conceived as tangible culmination of an imaginary artistic life, found a living extension in Simon Buret: a complete artist, nourished by music, painting, and sculpture—a fictional alter ego that took human form.

“I greatly admire the work of artists. When I admire something, I want to collaborate”

Sketchbook © Simon Buret

CARTE BLANCHE AND FREEDOM OF FORM

“I make to understand,” says Simon. From the very first discussions, he was invited to dream big. Rinck gave him unfettered access to its workshops, its savoir-faire, its artisans. The objective was to create a work of art, not a functional object. Simon eagerly accepted the challenge. He wanted to shape the material from its original magma, to forge a link between his world and Rinck’s, without limiting himself to ornament. The notion of a sculpture swiftly took hold.

He chose a starting point inspired by the company’s bronzes and ornaments: the acanthus leaf, a classic motif in the Rinck décor, one which he appropriated and morphed into a personal language. The statue’s body became a hybrid creature with an ambivalent presence, hands crossed over its chest that open like wings. It appeals and repels, entices and confuses.

“I wanted to capture an emotion of edginess and excitement, like a silent scream.”

FROM CLAY TO BRONZE: A HUMAN ADVENTURE

Alongside Loïc Barbedienne, one of Rinck’s ornamental sculptors, Simon discovered working with clay. He chose to use a blunt pencil to sculpt, using primitive, instinctive movements. “I wanted to capture an emotion of edginess and excitement, like a silent scream.” The model arose from this controlled urgency. The final statue was hardly retouched, remaining true to its first breath of existence.

At the art foundry, Simon witnessed the birth of his first bronze sculpture, a moving experience for him with a striking result: a work imbued with intimate symbols and universal resonance. Simon scattered childhood memories throughout the piece, moments shared with his grandmother, inspiration from the Greek islands he so loves…but there is, too, a call to mystery.

LA NUIT

The sculpture, christened La Nuit, embodies what the artist describes as the “night of oneself”—that invisible territory between emotion and the unconscious, between two viewpoints, between two worlds. For Simon, the night is a space for listening within, a moment when thoughts rise to the surface like buried echoes. “I think I make art to understand,” he says. “The night is that moment suspended in time when everything becomes more porous.” This sculpture is the palpable embodiment of this. With its folded wings and silent gesture, it seems to contain a very personal story, a mute appeal to look within. It also evokes a kind of expectation, of invisible transformation—as though, within its mass, it bore the transition from one state to another, a journey. Every detail, from the tilt of the head to the sculpted hands, conveys an inner turmoil, a gentle tautness between surrender and tension, contemplation and elevation. La Nuit is more than a figure: It is an emotion frozen in bronze.

On view at the Grand Palais

Presented at the heart of Rinck’s scenography for Art Paris 2026, La Nuit unfolds within a new space — open, and shaped by the movement of the gaze. Beneath the glass roof of the Grand Palais, the sculpture becomes part of a landscape of objects, where materials, forms, and presences enter into dialogue. It finds a particular resonance here, as a silent figure around which the space itself seems to organize.

In this context, La Nuit is not only seen — it is experienced.
A presence that accompanies the gaze, extending the exploration of an inner world, both sensitive and open.

This rare piece is being released in eight numbered copies and enriches Rinck’s Opus Memoria collection with a phantastic, sensitive spirit. With La Nuit, Rinck reasserts its calling: to create a dialogue between the arts, our dreams, and the act of creation.

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Dialogue at the Crossroads of Art

In this joint interview, the artists Simon Buret and Valentin Goux, President and Artistic Director of Rinck, reflect on their first encounter, the inspirations that shaped their collaboration, and the artistic and technical choices that led to the creation of La Nuit — a sculptural work emblematic of the Opus Memoria collection. A conversation in two voices, where poetry meets craftsmanship, echoing the spirit of this singular piece.

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Inside the workshop

Behind the Bronze: The Birth of La Nuit

Bringing La Nuit to life took months of dialogue—between sculpture, material, and flame. This film follows the creation of the piece from clay to bronze, unveiling the intricate, spectacular world of fine art foundry work.