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LALIQUE celebrates a new collection launch at a special exhibition at IFC Mall – a collection that brings two pioneering perfectionists together: René Lalique and René Magritte, the prolific and renowned surrealist artist known for his works of familiar objects in unfamiliar contexts. The Magritte x LALIQUE Collection takes the poetic world of René Magritte and transforms it into enigmatic crystal sculptures in this, the year that marks the 125th anniversary of the artist’s birth. In creating such unique and exquisite pieces, LALIQUE is ensuring that the imaginative power of these original works lives on in the modern era.
At the exhibition, the LALIQUE Art division proudly presents 6 new pieces from the Magritte x LALIQUE Collection. Mention the name of Magritte today and the first images that spring to mind are a pipe, an apple and a bowler hat. It is precisely because of the prominence and iconic nature of these objects in the artist’s oeuvre that LALIQUE chose to recreate them in crystal.
The giraffe standing tall in a crystal glass was an image Magritte first conceived in 1946. LALIQUE’s sculpture – LE BAIN DE CRISTAL – is based on a second version Magritte created in the same year in a style borrowed heavily from Renoir and the Impressionist movement. He sought to add joy, pure colour and sunlight to enliven the drab post-war period. The crystalware perfectly captures Magritte’s vision specific to his “Renoir period” by pulling off the subtle feat of associating sanded crystal with polished crystal in exactly the way the painter would have wanted to bring to life his painting in crystal form.
Magritte also painted at least a dozen pictures of apples wearing masks. He was fond of this theme and was often asked to paint it. His apples would appear as singletons, or sometimes in pairs, sometimes under a daytime sky and sometimes under a night sky. Hence, the apple in a mask crystal sculpture – entitled LE PRÊTRE MARIÉ – can be purchased as a singleton or a pair. Both versions are sat on a base of Brazilian green granite.
The tobacco pipe image is highly realistic and the inscription beneath it, “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” (this is not a pipe), aptly illustrates one of Magritte’s principles: “… in a painting, the words are of the same substance as the images”. Magritte said of the work, “The title does not contradict the drawing; it affirms it in a different way”. This famous painting has been rendered in clear crystal as a numbered edition and is entitled LA TRAHISON DES IMAGES.
Of the objects created by LALIQUE, the bowler hat is the only Magritte work which exists in the form of both a painting and of an object. Created a few days apart, both works are entitled Le Bouchon d’Épouvante (The Horror Cork). Incidentally, the man in the bowler hat is as evocative of Magritte himself as of his work, as the painter would often wear this hat to town.
To complement the art theme, LALIQUE also exhibited pieces created in collaboration with artists and designers from different fields, including the famous work “Still Water” created by Nic Fiddian Green, a sculpture of a horse’s head poised on the tip of its muzzle brushing the surface of the water; the “Fontana” plate designed by Zaha Hadid (1950-2016) and reinterpreted in fuchsia; and the panda sculptures designed by Chinese artist Han Meilin, all of which are perfect examples of LALIQUE’s ability to transform art into a major element of fashionable living. In addition, LALIQUE also extends the showcase of its 2023 Spring/Summer Empreinte Animale Collection at the pop-up, adding a dreamlike jungle world infused with the Amazon’s vibe into a curated collection of crystal art work that is inspired as much by the natural world around us as it is by the natural talent of the world’s most renowned artists and designers.
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