Ruinart continues its long-standing Conversations with Nature initiative in 2026 with Japanese artist Tadashi Kawamata, whose site-specific works explore the fragile balance between landscape, craftsmanship and environmental awareness.
Image: Portrait of Tadashi Kawamata – ©Florie Berger
Known for installations made from simple, often reused materials such as wood, chairs and barrels, Kawamata will create a series of works for Maison Ruinart’s emblematic address in Reims, 4 Rue des Crayères, as well as appearances at leading contemporary art fairs including Art Basel, Frieze and TEFAF.
©Florie Berger
The collaboration reflects Ruinart’s ongoing commitment to art as a lens through which to consider biodiversity, climate change and the evolving relationship between human intervention and the natural world. Kawamata’s practice, which sits at the intersection of art, architecture and design, is rooted in impermanence: his structures are deliberately light, vulnerable and responsive to their surroundings. For Ruinart, the partnership feels especially resonant. The Champagne house has long positioned itself at the meeting point of terroir, savoir-faire and artistic patronage, and Kawamata’s work extends that conversation into a tactile meditation on shelter, scale and transience.
At 4 Rue des Crayères, visitors will encounter three in-situ installations. Tree Hut, Nest and Observatory, each responding to the site’s vineyards, chalk cellars and changing natural conditions. Together, they offer a quietly immersive way to experience the landscape through a more attentive lens.
©Florie Berger
©Florie Berger
The collaboration also includes a limited-edition sculptural case for a Ruinart Blanc de Blancs jeroboam, produced in just 22 pieces. With its hollowed wooden corner transformed into a miniature nest, the object distills Kawamata’s larger artistic concerns into a collectible work of luxury design.
Jeroboam Ruinart Blanc de Blancs
©Ruinart
Rather than treating art as decoration, Ruinart frames it as a form of observation, a way to notice what is often overlooked. In Kawamata’s hands, that idea becomes a beautifully articulated conversation between champagne, craft and the living world.
