BRUSSELS.- Aldo Chale, 89 years old, is a Brussels artist. He is an educated mineralogist and blacksmith, who uses precious and semi-precious stones and metals, crystals or petrified wood in his works of art, and approaches making furniture like a craftsman rather than as a designer.

This very first retrospective outlines the career and the world of Ado Chale from 1966 to 2015, through carefully selected pieces of furniture and objects, such as his famous Goutte d’eau bronze table, inspired by pre-Columbian art. "It exists in several hundred copies, but its cooling process is random, and each cast, each casting of molten metal, each polishing makes it a unique piece, with its traces, ribs, scars and soul. " (Ado Chale)

Chale also transfigured less noble, organic, vegetable materials, such as pepper grain, mother-of-pearl or his bone button mosaics, which have made him world famous. To name a few: his schist ball piece, ranked among the 100 pieces of design of the XXth century, his volcanic console, his fire baskets, his carnelian table illuminated from below, another one in relief made of black onyx, his table with biomorphic feet on which are poured hundreds of carats of citrines.

And, last but not least, the exhibition will present a few nods like his showcases created for Hermes, his menu for the Comme chez soi restaurant or his dashboard for a Rolls-Royce.

To coincide with the exhibition, publishing house Aparté is bringing out a new book on Chale.