Charlotte Perriand’s start to shine brightly with multiple exhibitions

event> charlotte perriand | a house in montmartre
venue 1> laffanour galerie downtown gallery // design miami tent | booth g10
venue 2> raleigh hotel // 18th and beach entrance
date> 4 > 8 december

[ official press release ]
Laffanour – Galerie Downtown / Paris, the gallery that has created the market for the original works of Charlotte Perriand, will present an extraordinary solo exhibition of the architect and designer’s work at Design Miami/ 2013. “Charlotte Perriand – A House in Montmartre” created in the 1950s will bring together a selection of rare designs created for Maison Borot, the residence of the industrialist Jean Borot, which brilliantly encapsulates the breadth of Charlotte Perriand’s work.
 
In addition to the exhibition, the gallery will show original Perriand designs at the Louis Vuitton boutique located in the Miami Design District, in conjunction with the LVMH tribute to Charlotte Perriand’s “Maison au bord de l’eau” (House by the water’s edge), a Design Miami/ satellite. On view at The Raleigh Hotel in Miami Beach, this project reconstructs Perriand’s never-realized holiday house according to the original plans, and will be furnished with reproduction furniture that Perriand designed for this house. As the largest holder and premiere source for the designer’s work, Galerie Laffanour was asked to participate in this unique project.

Highlights on view at Design Miami/ from Maison Borot will be a bookcase – the culmination of her life-long research and interest in bookcase design, a white lacquered wood hanging system, a mahogany console table and two one-off pieces including a ceiling lamp and settee. The Borot House, one of Perriand’s last works, completely captured the zeitgeist of her time. The exclusive pieces showcased in the exhibition offer a never-before-seen glimpse into the exceptionally sophisticated and comprehensive vision of Charlotte Perriand.

Galerie Laffanour has been the prime mover behind the huge advances in the knowledge and understanding of the true worth of the works of Charlotte Perriand for over 35 years. The gallery’s working partnership with the Perriand family has enabled them to amass an unrivaled collection of referenced works on the designs of Charlotte Perriand. Because of the gallery’s access to personal archives, they have been able to share their expertise and knowledge of her body of work with art historians and researchers.
 
[ laffanour – galerie downtown / paris ] exhibits architects’ furniture designs, which are now recognized as real collectors’ items. For the gallery, this furniture is the product of a debate on the nature of modernity: the attempt to find a balance between the technical and that which is driven by questions of lifestyle – the end goal being to promote something that will be of use to society as a whole. The designs in question stand out for their intellectual rigor, commitment to social change and enthusiasm – we might even say radicalism – possessed as they were of sufficient vision and courage to strike out on new paths. The place of these items of furniture in the history of 20th century art must be seen through the spectrum of this period’s many social upheavals.
 
An uncompromising approach to aesthetics is very much the hallmark of Laffanour – Galerie Downtown / Paris, as is vividly illustrated by its spectacular displays in art fairs, its painstaking restoration work and its gallery exhibitions. Exhibitions at the rue de Seine gallery never fail to offer an opportunity to discover the original and the remarkable – testament to the unequalled expertise of Laffanour – Galerie Downtown / Paris. They also invest the collections of furniture and extremely rare pieces on display with a sense of grandeur that goes well beyond their basic function. Laffanour – Galerie Downtown / Paris is the major exhibitor of Charlotte Perriand’s work, but it has also helped bring Jean Prouvé’s designs to a wider audience. The gallery also features work by designers from the immediate post-1950s period right up to the present-day who are interested in similar creative challenges, such as Ettore Sottsass, Ron Arad and Gaetano Pesce.