"Claude and Francois-Xavier Lalanne" by Kathleen M. Morris

Claude and Francois-Xavier Lalanne Nature Transformed Kathleen M. Morris

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Format:: Paperback
Publication date:: 24 Aug 2021
ISBN:: 9780300250848
Imprint:: Clark Art Institute
Dimensions:: 128 pages: 229 x 267mm
Illustrations:: 70 color + b-w illus.
Sales territories:: World

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François-Xavier (1927–2008) and Claude (1925–2019) Lalanne were a husband-wife team of artists who created inventive and often surprising works that have been widely admired and collected since the 1960s. This book presents a carefully selected group of sculptures that focus on a shared preoccupation of the artists: the transformation of natural forms to serve new purposes, such as François-Xavier’s giant grasshopper sculpture that opens into a bar and Claude’s bench made of galvanized metal branches and vines such that it remains as much a forest as a place to sit. Critical analysis explores the full breadth of the artists’ careers; considers the complex issues of reception and categorization of their work; and prompts a reevaluation of the place their art occupies in the context of art museums, all while encouraging readers to consider relationships among nature, art, and their own encounters with both.

Kathleen M. Morris is the Sylvia and Leonard Marx Director of Collections and Exhibitions and the curator of decorative arts at the Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA.

Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA
(May 8–October 31, 2021)