Some objects carry time quietly. They absorb dinners, gestures, small rituals, then wait patiently for the next hand to touch them.
Baccarat’s collaboration with Harry Nuriev begins from that understanding. Not crystal as spectacle, but crystal as memory, altered by use and by imagination.
Unveiled in January 2026, the project centres on a reimagined Zénith chandelier. First introduced by Baccarat in the mid nineteenth century, Zénith has long been a declaration of light as architecture. In Nuriev’s hands, it becomes something more fragile and more human. A messenger between eras.
He imagines a future where crystal is no longer guaranteed. Where inheritance is incomplete. Where what is missing must be replaced not with perfection, but with whatever remains close at hand. Pens, bottle caps, CDs, keychains. Objects once dismissed as disposable now step into the role of ornament.
The chandelier does not hide this tension. Its metal structure stretches outward, holding everyday fragments beside twisted crystal arms, fleurs de lys and prisms. Monumental at a distance, intimate up close. It feels less like an object and more like a lived condition.
Nuriev calls this transformism. The act of reshaping what already exists without erasing its past. It is an approach that aligns quietly with Baccarat’s own history, where innovation has always come from rethinking material rather than abandoning it.
This dialogue did not begin here. In 2024, Nuriev transformed the entryway of Maison Baccarat in Paris into a graphic manifesto. Words like feu, étinceler and c’est la fête were etched across walls like reminders that craftsmanship is not static. Refrigerators holding heritage masterpieces suggested preservation not as nostalgia, but as future-facing care.
By 2025, the collaboration expanded into limited pieces revisiting the Harcourt glass and the Sirius crystal ball. Icons softened by intervention. Gilded, engraved, enamelled with phrases such as enjoy the moment and celebration. Not slogans, but gentle prompts.
Artisans in Baccarat’s ateliers translate these gestures with restraint. Black or colour appears sparingly. The hand remains visible. Emotion is not applied. It is revealed.
The exhibition unfolds first at Crosby Gallery from January 15 to 18, before moving to Maison Baccarat from January 20. Seen together, the works form a quiet proposition. That value is not fixed. That beauty adapts. That care can transform the ordinary into something worthy of keeping.
Nuriev does not romanticise survival. He observes it. In his imagined future, people do not replace what is lost with replicas. They improvise. They remember. They assign meaning where necessity demands it.
Baccarat, after more than two centuries, continues to allow that freedom. Light remains its language, but here it speaks with a different accent. Less about brilliance, more about resilience.
In the end, this collaboration is not about crystal disappearing. It is about what we choose to protect before it does.
Read more about art here.
