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...