Maxence Guillon looks, with a trained eye, at works by Frédéric Amat, Yves Lévêque, Pavel Rou?ka Quentin Garel… and his father, Didier Guillon, patron, artist and president of the Valmont Group. They have just opened the doors of Casa Maxence in Barcelona, ??the fourth Valmont Residence in the world after the Chalet Capucine in Verbier, the most chic resort in the Swiss Alps; the Villa Valentine on the relaxed island of Hydra (Greece) and La Résidence Bonvicini in Venice.
It is evident that father and son share a passion for art, a taste for discovering new artists, a cosmopolitan and contagious joie de vivre, and a pride that is palpable as they act as hosts and guide through the different rooms and the terrace overlooking a small group of guests. The house, in Sarrià, dates back to 1905 and its modernist façade in pastel colors looks better than ever. The manicured Japanese garden manages to escape from the urban bustle to encourage conversations and reading.
The Valmont Residences are designed to offer their guests a scarce commodity: time. A parenthesis to connect with the soul and the vital heartbeat of the environment that welcomes them. In them art and beauty meet hospitality. Carefully decorated spaces that can, but don’t want to, be just a museum. Warmth, touch, experiences and life to welcome artists and guests of the brand.
The Guillons know Barcelona well, its architectural heritage and a creative energy that runs through the veins of the family and the city. The house has a living room, four bedrooms and three floors joined by a central cascade of luminous masks with Venetian echoes, which also recall the opulent extraits de parfum of his Storie Veneziane.
A softwood bird sculpture by Quentin Garel next to a white Carrara marble cage; a giant nude, a collaborative work by Didier Guillon and the sculptor Carles Valverde; a colorful Jimmy Hendrix, Isao’s ceramic squares… The selection of works is meticulous and varied. They excite, question and sometimes provoke with the Guillons’ sly sense of humor.
Each of the rooms in the Barcelona residence is dedicated to an artist. Black and white photos, like the black ink drawings from the New Tork Times that he loves so much, dominate Didier Guillon’s bedroom. A handwritten pop explosion draws attention: Mao is magic!
The second bedroom is dedicated to Frédéric Amat. Canvases that oscillate between the experimental and the conceptual with pieces such as El viatge de Telèmac and La Venjança, especially loved by the Valmont Foundation, chaired by Maxence Guillon, who also gives its name to the residence. The visual poet Yves Lévêque and the expressive figurative compositions of the Czech Pavel Rou?ka also have their space
In the living room, the ceramics that make Barcelona so unique stand out. A long-term dialogue between Didier Guillon and the J. Llorens Artigas Foundation, the ceramist who was a friend of Braque, Picasso and Buñuel. Today, with Joan Gardy Artigas and Isao Llorens Ishikawa, there are already three generations of art, tradition and modernity.
Isao Llorens Ishikawa walks through the garden and mixes anecdotes with the same ease as styles, from painting to sculpture, animation, illustration, installations and Japanese influence… He chats animatedly with Didier and Maxence. Of art or of life? Nothing is exclusive. “Art makes you live with a different perception of reality. It gives you a new way of thinking about contemporary problems,” the two Guillons agree.
Casa Maxence joins Maison Valmont in Madrid to complete the presence of the Swiss brand in Spain.
