For one thing, his favored material, glass, is rarely used in sculpture; for another, he took a keen interest in the structure of knots… together with a mathematician. Digital images produced in the course of Mexican mathematician Aubin Arroyo's research looked uncannily like Othoniel's sculptures. Arroyo had seen them online in 2015, particularly his Peony Knot, made of mirrored blown-glass beads: a genuine Borromean link, three linked circles in which removing one frees the other two. The two men subsequently met and discussed this coincidence, and Arroyo selected the French sculptor's Infinite Knot for display in the "Imaginario Matematico" room at Mexico City's science museum. Their meeting resulted in a book, Nudos salvajes ("Wild Knots"), published by Éditions Othoniel.
Back in 2016, Othoniel's Living by Numbers project—a giant abacus with multicolored beads—had been selected for the AIDS monument created in Amsterdam (Netherlands) to support people living with HIV. With this abacus, the number of people affected worldwide can be recorded each year, in the hope that the counter will one day return to zero.
Peony Knot,
Borromean knot.
