For more than a century, Ruinart has collaborated with contemporary artists, a lineage that continues today with Liu Bolin’s elemental intervention at The Ritz-Carlton Maldives. Ruinart’s International Arts and Culture director Fabien Vallérian speaks to Dionne Bel
For more than a century, Champagne Ruinart has forged a distinctive bond with contemporary art that predates most brand-led cultural collaborations. In 1896, long before creative partnerships became commonplace, Ruinart invited Czech painter Alphonse Mucha to design an advertising poster for the house, thereby becoming the first champagne maison to collaborate with a living artist — a move that would echo through the decades as both visionary and foundational to its identity. This commitment to art evolved into the Carte Blanche programme, formally established in 2008 to commission and document annual artistic collaborations that reflect Ruinart’s ethos while advancing the dialogue between creativity and craftsmanship.
Over the years, Ruinart has worked with artists of diverse backgrounds, mediums and perspectives, nurturing long-term creative relationships rather than one-off commissions. Among these is Chinese artist Liu Bolin– known as “The Invisible Man” for his camouflage painting performances that have resulted in his famed Hiding in the City series – whom Ruinart first hosted at its winery in Reims in 2017. Last November, Ruinart
welcomed Liu back for a second collaboration: a weeklong residency at The Ritz-Carlton Maldives, Fari Islands, which culminated in the new work Elements.
Conceived before the Indian Ocean, Liu merged his painted body with the site’s ring of fire, the pool’s still surface and the horizon’s dissolving line, aligning himself precisely where sea, sky and flame meet so that he appeared to vanish in an acknowledgement of the elemental forces – water, fire, earth and wind – ever present in nature. The piece deepened Ruinart’s exploration of humanity’s ties to the land, extending its legacy of artistic innovation into a breathtaking new context. Fabien Vallérian, International Arts and Culture director at Ruinart, discusses how art remains fundamental to the maison’s raison d’être.
Ruinart is often cited as the first champagne house to collaborate with a leading artist of its time. How certain are you of that history? Did you conduct research to find out that this was the case?
Yes, totally. It was known as something very innovative at the time, in 1896, and then it was copied by other wine brands, not just champagne. But we know that in the history of brands, this was the first move to collaborate with an artist to promote a maison.
Your Carte Blanche programme officially began in 2008, but your relationship with artists goes further back. How did it evolve?
Carte Blanche, as it is now, started in 2008, but there were already some commissions before that in the early 2000s. We didn’t keep records of a lot of them, but they were collaborations with galleries, especially in Paris on Rue Louise-Weiss, where all the contemporary galleries used to be. As for the archival process, we didn’t really keep the actual objects or artworks. We have some pictures, but not the originals. In 2008, it really began as a yearly collaboration – something framed, structured, documented and kept.
How has this 130-year-old tradition of engaging with artists across eras shaped Ruinart’s cultural identity, and what does it mean for the maison to continue this legacy today?
I like that it’s really part of our DNA, and that we keep it alive. I believe DNA isn’t something engraved in stone – it’s something alive, enriched every year. Every art collaboration brings something new. It’s not just revisiting the past; it’s moving forward. Sustainability projects and artists linked to nature bring a prospective feeling that the Ruinart DNA is alive and kicking. Every year, we try to choose artists with different approaches, different mediums, different points of view, artists from China, California, Japan, Cameroon, Congo, Europe, Brazil. We cover many facets of the global art community.
This is your second time collaborating with Liu Bolin. Is returning to an artist something Ruinart does often?
To be honest, we’ve done collaborations with several artists multiple times. Sophie Kitching, we worked with her in New York four years ago, and again in the Maldives in 2024. We did several commissions with Alexandre Benjamin Navet, Guillaume Sardin, Nils-Udo, Eva Jospin. We have a back-and-forth approach. Our aim is long term: to keep artists as part of the Ruinart family. With Bolin, it came naturally – his work touches a large audience; people love it. It’s very welcoming, very readable for visitors. So we said, let’s do something again. We have this good relationship that we want to keep alive.
Following Liu Bolin’s artist residency, The RitzCarlton Maldives, Fari Islands, is hosting an exhibition of his works for six months. Why bring such an ambitious art project into a hotel context, and what do you hope guests will take away from it?
Artistic activations are a big commitment; this project with Liu Bolin started a year before. Hospitality, artist, brand, regional teams – it takes time. So we only do a few every year. The idea is that Bolin’s work becomes part of the landscape. The final photograph, based on his performance at the resort’s Eau Bar at sunset, is being shown here. It tells the story of that connection between Ruinart, The R itz-Carlton and the Maldives. It brings cultural and artistic meaning to a hotel stay. It speaks to how an artist feels when encountering a place so dependent on nature: ecosystems, weather, rising sea levels. Maldives’ highest point is only three metres above sea level. Resorts like The R itz-Carlton Maldives, Fari Islands, are very conscious of ecology, and so are we at Ruinart with climate change affecting our vineyards. It’s meaningful that these concerns meet through the same artist.
