words Anna Bates
Reading can be performance, decoration and cinema, according to a current exhibition at Galerie Kreo in Paris.
Called La Liseuse – the French word for both reader and reading light – it shows work by French designer David Dubois, Swiss designer Adrien Rovero and cross-European trio Big-Game.
Former librarian Dubois designed a wall light comprising a folded steel “bookmark” over which books can be placed. The piece celebrates deserving covers usually sandwiched between others on the bookshelf.
Big-Game responded with a huge wooden lamp. Minimalist and clunky, it plays on the “1.2m-high generic code for a liseuse,” says Big-Game member Augustin Scott de Martinville. “We reinterpreted it. It looks quite surreal – like it’s supporting the wall, making it look like the facade of a cinema set.”
The grandest piece was Rovero’s two-metre-high arch with an aluminium and plexiglas shade, under which a chair is placed, turning the act of reading into a performance.
The exhibition is part of an ongoing project in memory of Monica Danet, the late art director of silverware design store Christofle. “She loved reading,” says Galerie Kreo director Clémence Krzentowski. “Her husband wanted to pay homage to her.”
Curated by Paris-based designer Martin Szekely, the exhibition runs until 19 January.
