Whimsical World of a husband and wife not-team

Les Lalanne à Trianon

I saw an exhibition at Versailles recently. Of sculpture. Mostly outdoors. Placed seemingly at random, but placed exactly where they were supposed to be. And they were nowhere near the Chateau itself or the grand promenades that one sees from the Chateau. Rather, the sculptures by François-Xavier and Claude Lalanne pop up in and around the Petit Trianon (which Louis XV built for his mistress Mme du Barry, Figure 1) skim the jardin francais, before going directly through the jardin anglais, which Marie Antoinette remodeled when she became queen, passing by the Temple d’Amour to the Grotto and Belvedere (designed under her direction, Figure 2) to the Hameau (hamlet) de la Reine, (Figure 3) with which she is most closely associated.

Figure 2. Grotte and Belvedere, Jardin Anglais, Versailles

Figure 3. Hameau de la Reine, Versailles

We all know the story, Louis XVI gave Marie Antoinette the Petit Trianon very early on in his brief reign. It was where she sought refuge from the stuffy confines of court life. It was her hangout when she just couldn’t take life at court anymore. There is a nice juxtaposition of classical and restrained (Petit Trianon, French garden, Temple d’Amour) with rural and naturalist (Hameau de la Reine, Belvedere, Grotte and Jardin Anglais) which forms a perfect backdrop for the whimsical sculptures that are the work of two (almost) contemporary artists, a husband and wife not-team, who eventually called themselves Les Lalanne, and who created sculptures separately while working together.

Before I tell you about the sculptures and how they got there, I want to whet your appetite, show you what’s in store. A flock of sheep, about 15 in all, made by the husband of the not-team, François-Xavier. (Figure 4) The sheep are grazing peacefully on the soft grass. Now they are called the ‘Moutons de Laine’ (although they are are made of bronze and epoxy, not wool). The artist originally called this mini-herd Pour Polytheme.

Figure 4. Flock of Sheep, Francois-Xavier Lalanne at Versailles

That original name is a shout out to the Odyssey, of course. Odysseus, you’ll remember, sailing home after the Trojan War, confronted one mis-adventure after another. These sheep recall the time he and his sailors made land on the island of the Cyclopes. As they explored the island, they found a cave filled with food. Which they ate. Which infuriated the cyclopes whose cave they were in and whose food they had eaten. So, the cyclops, Polyphemus, put a huge stone in front of the cave’s entrance and began eating Odysseus’ sailors. Which seems fair. Polyphemus told Odysseus that he intended to eat every one of the sailors, saving Odysseus for last. But Odysseus had another idea. He offered the cyclops some very strong wine. Just before he passed out drunk, Polyphemus asked Odysseus his name. And Odysseus wisely answered, ‘Nobody.’ Once the one-eyed giant was asleep, Odysseus stabbed him. In his one eye. Which blinded him. Polyphemus screamed out in pain. His fellow cyclopes rushed to his cave and asked who was attacking him. He replied 'Nobody.’ So they left.

The next morning, the now blind Polyphemus opened the cave to let his sheep out to graze. As each sheep passed, he rubbed its back to make sure no sailor was trying to escape on it. But once again, Odysseus had tricked Polyphemus. The surviving sailors escaped by hanging on to the sheeps’ under bellies. (Figure 5)

Figure 5. How Odysseus and his men escaped Polyphemus, the Cyclops they blinded

So, that’s what they’re about. And look how much fun it is to gaze upon the grazing sheep that hid Odysseus and his crew from the Cyclops through the frame that is the cut out belly of this cow. (Figure 6)

Figure 6. F-X Lalanne Cut-out Cow with Sheep and Hameau de la Reine beyond

A little farther along, I spied something else that made my art historian’s heart soar. It’s Europa and the Bull. You remember that story, right? How Zeus saw Europa frolicking by the sea with her friends. (Figure 7) Transfixed by her beauty, the horny god who had absolutely no impulse control, transformed himself into a bull, a gentle bull (what bull!!). Seeing how gentle he was, Europa sat on his back. And away he went. Her ride was followed by his. (Figures 8, 9) She became the first queen of Crete, had three sons, one of whom was Minos, the eventual ruler of Crete. Zeus gave her a few other gifts, among them a javelin that never missed - too bad she didn’t use it on him.

Figure 7. Rape of Europa, Titian, 1562, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston (a not stolen masterpiece)

You are probably wondering why these sheep and how that bull wound up at Versailles. Actually, every summer since 2008, Versailles has welcomed contemporary artists to present their work in and around the Chateau. To enter into dialogue with this grand and glorious place and with the ghosts of the royals who lived there. As one critic explained it, Versailles started out as a venue for contemporary art, so inviting living artists to work at Versailles is simply keeping with tradition. You will probably not be surprised that the artist who kicked off the annual summer event was the artist everybody loves to hate, Jeff Koons. (Figure 10) Since then, artists like Takashi Murakami (whose purses for Louis Vuitton were all the rage when Marc Jacobs was that company’s creative director) and Anish Kapoor who got into trouble for calling one of his Versailles pieces, ‘The Queen’s Vagina’. (Figure 11) Although I must admit I thought that everything Kapoor created that year for Versailles was fabulous. The next year, some of Olafur Eliasson’s pieces were too familiar for me. Fog. I don’t warm to fog. I get more than enough fog in San Francisco. But that’s me. Otherwise, it was a very cool exhibition.

Figure 10. Jeff Koons at Versailles, 2008

Figure 11. Anish Kapoor, ‘The Queen’s Vagina’ Versailles, 2015

This year, circumstances dictated that business as usually was not an option if there was to be a summer exhibition. It was already March when confirmation came that the Chateau would open in June. There was neither enough time nor enough money to commission a living artist to create and install an exhibition. On to Plan B. A meeting in March with the director of the Galerie Mitterrand, which has represented the Les Lalanne for over 30 years, led to the delightful exhibition I saw. Of sculptures which had already been created by two recently deceased artists which were set up in and around the Petit Trianon rather than in and around the grand Chateau.

So, who were the Les Lalanne? As it turns out, I have known their work without knowing who they were for quite a while. Since I first began vacationing in the Perigord 30 years ago, I have been visiting Sarlat, the ‘crown jewel’ of the Perigord. It was one of the first villages saved from destruction by the Loi Malraux (named in honor of de Gaulle’s Minister of Culture, Andre Malraux) which protects France’s patrimony, the historical and aesthetic heritage of France. A charming sculptural group of three geese marks the Place du Marché aux Oies (Goose Market). (Figure 12) We are not going to discuss foie gras, you and I, except for me to tell you that artisanal methods of gavage are not brutal, no matter what you have heard. Certainly less brutal than how Perdue raises its chickens. I came upon the Les Lalanne another time at one of the Barriere hotels in Deauville, the Hotel du Golf which boasts three Les Lalanne Apples (Figure 13) (and two Moooi horse lamps). Brothers (or sisters, or cousins) of the Sarlat geese are at Versailles, so too a golden apple, entitled the Apple of New York.

Figure 12. Oies, Francois-Xavier Lalanne, Place du Marché aux Oies, Sarlat

Figure 13. Barriere Hotel Golf, Deauville

Francois-Xavier and Claude met in 1952, married in 1967 and worked together and apart until 2008, when F-X died. Claude died 11 years later, in 2019 at the age of 93. According to one article, they were one of the ‘it’ couples of the 20th century, celebrated for their distinctive blend of fine and decorative arts, their interest in the natural and the organic. Francois-Xavier’s thing was the animal kingdom, Claude’s was the botanical world. As a critic recently noted, even though they built their brand as a couple, they mostly stayed in their own lanes.

Following in the classical tradition of Poussin and Ingres, François-Xavier favored pure lines and sought to capture an animal’s expression and its movement with a minimum of detail. He began his work the traditional way, by drawing. (Figure 14)

Figure 14. Francois-Xavier Lalanne, drawing

Claude’s work is ornamental and baroque and according to her gallerist, ‘(s)he began with materials she had in the studio.’ Through a process invented in the 19th century called electroplating, ‘she transformed nature into art – immersing flora and fauna in a bath of copper sulphate to create metal casts of organic matter.’ (Figure 15)

Figure 15. Claude Lalanne at work in her studio

Francois-Xavier’s sheep were an instant hit. One of the couple’s first and most loyal clients, Yves Saint Laurent, had several in his garden which he enjoyed lounging upon. One of Claude’s best known pieces is her Choupatte, a cabbage with chicken legs (a version of which is at Versailles). (Figure 16) Claude said, ’I had taken a mold of a cabbage and just wondered what it would look like with legs…The moment I saw it, it felt right. It had emotion.’ She riffed off it for decades. Her sculpture L’Homme à Tête de Chou, (‘The Man with the Head of a Cabbage’) so appealed to the singer Serge Gainsbourg, that he named an album after it and put it on the album cover. (Figure 17)

Figure 17. L’Homme à Tête de Chou, Claude Lalanne, inspiration and cover of album same name, Serge Gainsbourg

Mitterrand, the gallerist, had a goal in selecting the sculptures for the exhibition and determining their placement, it was to ‘poetically take on the spirit of Marie Antoinette’ by finding the right ‘association of proportions (to) create intimacy’ and by ‘taking into account the (many) perspectives’ offered by the buildings, the lake and the gardens. There were also relations between the sculptures which I found especially felicitous and joyful. It was the perfect confluence of place and project.

So, now I am going to take you for a balade, a stroll, a ramble through the exhibition. To give you a sense of the delight I felt walking around and bumping into this wild and varied assortment of creatures. At one point, I randomly looked into one of the little pavilions and saw that there were sculptures in them, too. And so I had to retrace my steps to see what else I might have missed. What fun!

In one of the pavilions I looked into, I saw F-X’s Bar Autruches, commissioned in 1970 by Georges Pompidou for the Élysée Palace. F-X worked with the Manufacture de Sèvres to create the ostriches’ porcelain bodies and the egg between their beaks. (Figure 18) In another pavilion that I peaked into, I saw an adorable monkey sitting on a pedestal. (Figure 19) A bench nearby has crocodile back and legs. (Figure 20).

Figure 18. Bar Autruches, F-X Lalanne, on loan from Élysée Palace

From the Petit Trianon, you will see a Golden Apple as you look across at the Temple of Love. (Figure 21) In the French gardens, you’ll bump into a seated gorilla (Figure 22) and a steel arch supported by two elephants. (Figure 23) In the English gardens, you’ll see several wild boar stalking a deer, (Figure 24) and a bear rising up on its hind legs. (Figure 25) In front of the Queen’s Hamlet, a bronze rabbit with a staff, very Alice in Wonderland. (Figure 26) And a pair of turtle doves bound together. (Figure 27) Of course, they mate for life. How charming.

Figure 21. Golden apple in front of Temple of Love

Figure 22. Seated Gorilla in front of Petit Trianon

Figure 27. Pair of Turtle Doves in front of Hameau de la Reine

I’ve put together a little video so you can stroll around the grounds of the Petit Trianon with me. Click and enjoy !!!

Whimsical World of a husband and wife not-team

Les Lalanne at Versailles

The Final Wrap

Musée Musings