3.20.2009

La La Lalanne

In case you were confused by my blathering about the atrocity of Lalanne's sheep being lost in Fernandez's farmland room disaster at Veranda's Greystone Show House (see last post), I spent the better of this morning paging through roughly 852,434 magazines to locate this incredibly engaging and beautiful editorial on Claude and Francois-Xavier Lalanne's (1927-, and 1927-2008 respectively) 1998 retrospective. And all so that you can see the sheep in a space they deserve (arranged by the artists), along with some of the Lalanne's other fantastical works. Note that I would die to sleep in Francois-Xavier's bird bed:


House and Garden, September 1998


The husband/wife duo are known for their surrealist, playful sculptures inspired by nature. Claude's tend to be lighter, smaller, and organic in form, while Francois-Xavier made larger works involving animals. Xavier-Francois's "Rhiocrétaire" from 1964 is particularly jaw dropping:





As is this crocodile table, also by Francois-Xavier. The metallic texture is rather godly:


And some of Claude Lalanne's feathery light pieces:


Images from artnet.com

I love that the functionality of their art ignites a sort of childlike desire to participate, engage, play, (and laugh!) with the pieces, which Francois-Xavier acknowledged, declaring that "...the fact that you can squat on [the sheep] reduces the risk of this inappropriate devotion."

Does my inexplicable desire to live in the bird bed in the Bagatelle's folly qualify as inappropriate devotion? Questionable...

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