The Cosmopolitan Apartment of the bazar d'alger's Founder

My name is Arnold d’Alger, son of Brigitte and Gérard, brother of Cécile. In broad outline, I would say that I am an artist, always eager to meet new people, a lover of nature, good living, my friends, sharing, Bruno, art, flea markets, my work and far too many other lovely things to be able to give you an exhaustive list! Currently, I am totally committed to my recently established business, bazar d’alger. The best way to get to know me is still to sit down and eat with me!

I’ve always been a music lover, and in my spare time, you can also find me behind the turntables with my friends from Tristesse and Scandale or with my headphones on selecting tracks for our monthly playlists. I share Arnold’s (somewhat overwhelming) passion for plants and succulents, and our collection is expanding quite regularly. I am one of those people who want a dog and follow them on Instagram (Hello, dear Noodle). I also read a lot of novels, “La Chaleur” by Victor Jestin and “Demande à la Poussière” by John Fante, and comic books too, especially about Japan or written by Japanese authors (“La Cantine de Minuit” by Yarô Abe, “Chiisakobe” by Minetaro Mochizuki, and books by Ryoko Sekiguchi). I hope we’ll have the opportunity to go there one day and experience the food (another passion I have in common with Arnold) as well as for art, culture and sake!

I’m a graphic designer by training, and I launched bazar d’alger in December 2019. It’s a bit of a cliché, “Arnold was fed up with the screen and needed a return to the material world”. We read it a lot these days, but it’s as simple as that. So, two years ago, I signed up for porcelain decorating and silk painting courses through Paris Ateliers, which I doubled-up with a year of pottery at Sandrine de Poterie et Compagnie next door. I did it all. I was asked to bring my own crockery for these porcelain decoration workshops. So, instead of buying new pieces, I preferred to buy on leboncoin. You get direct access to private individuals’ cupboards, and to good old granny’s crockery which was just begging to find a place on the table! And boom, bazar d’alger was born.

As for me, I plunged headlong into digital by founding my digital production studio della mattia. I changed my profession radically about three years ago. Before that, I worked for over eight years in communication and digital marketing for companies and cultural venues. I was always attracted to computers, but I never thought that one day that I would be able to code. Then I got to grips with coding through fellow creative coders who encouraged me to learn. I trained online with SuperHi! and then at the Ecole de Wagon, where I still give lessons today in parallel with my self-employed activities. This is how I help my clients with the conception, design and development of all their digital projects such as portfolios or e-commerce, most often for artists who have small brands such as bazar d’alger (Laughs). More recently, I’ve been training in eco-design, which will allow me to create low impact, eco-responsible websites by the end of the year.

It’s an open hideaway, and we have as much fun welcoming people here as we do working here! We’ve been here for two years now, and it’s partly because of bazar d’alger. For the record, this ceramic kiln, sitting carelessly in the entrance, is a gift from Isabelle, a friend of my mother’s. She gave me a huge boost as soon as she saw that I was starting my business. It was right at the beginning of my relationship with Bruno, and I took him to the Vaucluse in a van to go and fetch this free gift! When we returned in the middle of the night to what was my flat at that time, we realised (well actually I did) that it wouldn’t fit. It was already full! Long story short: after a few days of embarrassment – acting as if nothing had happened – and with that kiln near the mailboxes, I came across the only property advertisement in the neighbourhood that didn’t have a photo… on the eve of going on holiday in the Basque Country. I called, and the viewing was scheduled for the next morning. And that’s how we came across this little gem. The train left three hours later. The landlady kept the apartment for us until we got back from our holidays and then we settled in! So for two years now, I’ve been enjoying working on old dishes – or directly on those provided my clients, I’ve been creating decorations on tiles for unique interiors, and I’ve been painting on silk.

Having one’s senses continually reawakened. That seems to me to be a basis. Then, shaping a culture, taking an interest in what affects us and understanding why. It is from this analysis of what awakens my emotions that I draw my inspiration. Nature is obviously one of the things that surround me in life, and it influences me a lot. The intimacy I was talking about earlier is also very important for creations for bazar d’alger.

It’s a former workshop! This floor, and the part in which we are standing, housed the machinery, and on the other side of the landing was the living space. It’s a completely open area. The space has only been structured by the furniture, a few curtains and blinds, and a lot of plants. We wanted to keep it as fluid as possible and make people feel at home, whether it be our friends or the people we work with.

Populated is the right word! Between the plants that are growing and the flowers that are drying… there is a whole lot of furniture that was passed on to me by my mother, who embellished her home during her stays in Africa with my military father. I also loved to raid Ambroise Alliou’s wonderfully well-stocked shop when he was still in the 18th arrondissement, but I’ve been keeping a close eye on him ever since he moved to Trouville; you never know! That’s where I acquired the Joseph Zotti armchair that I like so much, together with the 1970 round marble coffee table with a white steel base that commands the entrance, the cream and aluminium armchair by George Frydman and the metal and rosewood bookcase. I have also scoured leboncoin and used Cocolis a lot, the ideal partner when you’re looking for Chinese treasures, large or small! I found my marble and rosewood pieces on the classified ads site. Now, I’m displaying my latest tile samples! Apart from those, I love this shelf suspended from the ceiling. It is made of iron rods covered with white plastic and comes from Mexico. I would have liked to bring back four more, but we already had a lot of extra luggage due to my compulsive “little” purchases (pottery, typewriter, candles, vases, birds, bronze face and so on). On the wall, you can see some of the large paper collage work I made during lockdown, some framed tiles, a silk hanging and some bathroom shelves that I decorated with gold and placed in the living room. And a coffee table, the prototype from a collaboration with Renée Recycle with whom we will soon be producing some unique pieces of furniture. They will have tiles from bazar d’alger on them. And then, there is this bronze banana. It was the only object I could afford from the incredible selection belonging to my antique dealer friend Dorian Caffot de Fawes. But what I like most is to be surrounded by the work of other artists. As for that, I’m a bit compulsive, there are about a hundred work sitting waiting to be framed. My passion for art has infected Bruno. He recently bought himself a drawing by Alex Foxton and a painting by Alexandre Benjamin Navet. Among the few things of mine that are visible at the moment, there are my dear Martinet & Texereau, who made the two drawings above the sofa and this group of four plants that shares the office space with us. Then there are Claire Trotignon’s collages, Brian de Graft’s plants, an iconic portrait of François Malingrëy, this Bruno portrait that I commissioned from Cristina Amodeo for his last birthday, some canvases by George(s), and these little Mexican lottery cards that I like so much.