From the Series
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Mathieu Lehanneur, Arik Levy, Matali Crasset and Florence Jaffrain all participated in the Preliminaries exhibition. Subtitled “Design at the threshold of love”, SLOTT gallery in Paris and Exquise Design invited the designers to express their fantasies, play with the concepts and meaning behind love, and breathe life into their ideas of “preliminaries”.
The sharp and jagged sculpture by Lehanneur entitled The Power of Love is a skilfully designed foreplay tool that depicts the heat and passionate fire of two lovers when together. Levy explored contemporary sexual iconography.
In turn, Crasset’s Aequorea, inspired by the fluidity of the jellyfish, is a platform topped by a corolla, an umbrella-shaped structure. More space than object, the structure looks to emulate the elegance of the marine animal.
The exhibition’s culmination, if you will, was Jaffrain’s beautiful coral-inspired sofa, “Belly Love”. Inspired by Sarcophyton elegans, a soft coral found in the Indian Ocean, the sofa’s fibres are incorporated with photo-luminescent components and microcapsules that put it in the realm between a living organism and simply a piece of furniture.
