NEW YORK, NY.- Paul Kasmin Gallery announces Les Lalanne, an exhibition of works by Claude and Fran鏾is-Xavier Lalanne on view at 515 West 27th Street from March 26 May 2, 2015. In a unique collaboration with renowned landscape architect Madison Cox, a longtime friend of the artists, the gallery has been transformed into a winding labyrinth featuring a range of both recent and historic sculptures.
Through a dramatic gated entry designed by Claude Lalanne, a series of navigable walls serve as the backdrop to a wide spectrum of Lalanne sculptures, including Fran鏾is-Xavier Lalannes towering bronze G閚ie de Bellerive, the artists homage to his close friends and colleagues Constantin Bran鐄si and Max Ernst. On making one's way through the exhibition one will encounter a version of the fabled "hall-of-mirrors" created for Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergs Paris home in 1974. Here, Claude Lalannes Lustres hovers over thirteen mirrors, each elaborately entwined with bronze-cast flora and fauna. The exhibition also includes the iconic Pomme dHiver, a six-foot bronze sculpture of a perfect golden apple and Claude Lalannes most recent work, Choupatte (Moyen), a signature motif in her distinctly Surrealist oeuvre.
This exhibition is accompanied by an equally special new book Les Lalanne: Fifty Years of Work, 1964-2015 edited by critic Adrian Dannatt in Paris featuring rare, never before seen images from the personal Lalanne archive as well as vintage photographs by Lom, Guy Bourdin, Fran鏾is Halard and Jean-Philippe Lalanne. This publication also boasts interviews and testimonials from the extraordinary range of the Lalanne's friends, collaborators and collectors over the decades including; Laurence Graff, Peter Marino and Carla Fendi, architect Paul Chemetov, and cultural luminaries such as Fran鏾is de Ricql鑣 and Agnes Gund.
Claude Lalanne (b. 1924 in Paris, lives and works in Ury, France) and Fran鏾is-Xavier Lalanne (b. 1927 in Agen, died 2008 in Ury, France), known individually and collectively since the 1960s as Les Lalanne, developed a unique m閘ange of inventive, practical, poetic and Surrealist sculptures. Most recently, Les Lalanne were the subject of a full-scale retrospective at the Mus閑 des Arts D閏oratifs in Paris and an important public exhibition at the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Coral Gables, Florida. Their work has also been featured on New Yorks Park Avenue and in the sale of the collection of Yves Saint Laurent. In addition to countless private collections, their works can be found in international institutions including the Cooper Hewitt Museum, New York; the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; the Kr鰈ler-M黮ler Museum, Netherlands; and the Mus閑 dHistoire Naturelle, Paris.
Madison Cox (b. 1958 in Bellingham, Washington) is renowned for creating some of the most coveted gardens for clients worldwide. Cox graduated in 1984 from Parsons School of Design with a BFA in Environmental Design and has since worked on both private and public commissions including the Spring Garden at the French National Museum at the Ch鈚eau de Bl閞ancourt. In addition to maintaining offices in New York and Morocco, Cox is Vice President of both the Foundation Pierre Berg-Yves Saint Laurent, Paris and the Foundation Jardin Majorelle, Marrakech.