Demisch Danant & Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance present
Made in Situ: Barro Negro/ Bronze & Beeswax/ Chêne & Liège
October 16-October 23, 2023
8 Passage de la bonne graine, 75011 Paris
From October 16–23, 2023, prolific French designer, Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance, in tandem with NYC gallery, Demisch Danant, will present a selection of works from Made in Situ, a Paris and Lisbon-based project that advocates for a practice rooted in a given territory, exploring its materials, artisans, craftsmanship and cultural vernacular.
A dynamic examination of the exchange between person and place, Made in Situ is a series of cross-disciplinary works in conversation with nature, feeling, and materiality. For five years, Duchaufour-Lawrance has been living and working between Lisbon and Paris, developing these poetically site-specific collections alongside local artisans and craftspeople. His collections serve as testaments to time spent truly discovering a place, its people, and their history. Inscribed and contextualized, the creations that make up its collections are considered and, hence, more conscious. Each of them does not just tell the story of a place and its inhabitants, it expresses what unites them.
Made in Situ has its origins in the very definition of the Latin expression in situ, a direct reference to the capacity of design to act as a vector, reconnecting us with our surroundings. The associated drawings, texts, photographs and films presented alongside the works play an important role in understanding the creative process; these artifacts become the recorded memory of the experiences generated by the project. Echoing the inherent essence of the collections, the exhibition space is filled with noble and timeless materials, sounds, scents and images. Through contact with the selected materials, the visitor is transported into a sensory universe conducive to the discovery of new geographies.The collections and works can be discovered, in situ, like authentic travel diaries, each one with its own distinctive features.
After a first standalone Made in Situ exhibition in New York last fall, Demisch Danant and Duchaufour-Lawrance come together again for this showcase, bound by a shared admiration for narrative-driven design and material-forward conception. Highly respected for their meticulous curation of innovative twentieth-century design, Demisch Danant’s presentation of Made in Situ speaks to their respect for the artistry and perspective of Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance, a rare contemporary amongst their roster of historical greats. Since its inception, the gallery has specialized in French works from the late 1950s through the 1970s that have pushed the boundaries of their respective times. With a focus on multifaceted experiences, this exhibition sits at the intersection of architecture, art, and design.
On view at the Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance gallery will be works from the collections Barro Negro, Bronze & Beeswax, and Chêne & Liège.
Barro Negro
Barro Negro or ‘black clay’ is Made In Situ's first collection. These ceramic works come from the village of Molelos in northern Portugal. They are fired in the ground, a process believed to date back to the Neolithic period, giving rise to a ceremony known as 'Soenga', which is still practiced today by the community of potters in the region. This special technique, mastered by the exceptional craftsmen Xana Monteiro and Carlos Lima, enables the clay to be permeated with carbon dioxide, thus giving it a lasting color ingrained in the form. Their distinctive shapes evoke the granite mountains that surround Molelos. Moreover, they are a tribute to the local people, to the strength of character of their age-old tradition passed down from generation to generation, similarly to this family of interconnected vases.
Bronze & Beeswax
Made in Situ can be described as a series of encounters which are unexpected and lead to the creation of a design object, which is then associated with a personality, a place and, as a result, enriched with a history that it is charged with conveying onwards. The bronze candle holders were created following a visit to a boat propeller factory in Peniche, Portugal. The candles, in contrast, are the result of an extensive treasure hunt, starting with a manufacturer in the Fátima region and ending with a beekeeper in the village of Nisa, who supplied the wax. It is the design objects themselves that perpetuate this dialogue. Once heated, the wax from the candles used in the Flux candle holder flows into a meticulously curved channel, and is then collected, solidifying directly in the bronze. None of the materials are lost, especially not the wax, which is under threat from the progressive disappearance of bees. Every element is combined into a single body of surprising shapes. Similarly, for Lux, the glow of the flame, reflected on the bronze surfaces, morphs into shifting patterns that become part of this endless cycle of creation.
Chêne & Liège
The first collection by Made in Situ produced in France, the Chêne & Liège project is very much embedded in the massif des Maures nature reserve. The concept is based on the specific properties of its endemic and emblematic tree: the cork oak. Naturally fire-resistant, the bark of this species is an effective ally against the fires that occur more and more frequently and on an ever-increasing scale in the region. However, once covered in soot – if it is not removed – this bark, which is otherwise so protective, asphyxiates the tree, causing it to die.
With the help of a lumberjack, a cork harvester, a woodworker and a craftsman, Chêne & Liège aims to embody this dual identity through an amalgamation of the wood from the burnt cork oak trunks and the healthy bark still harvested by one of the last specialist companies in the Var. Together, the wood salvaged from the flames and the healthy bark create furniture of a paradoxical nature that is crafted with an awareness of social and environmental issues.
About Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance
A multidisciplinary French designer, Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance is known internationally for his sensitive attention to materials and details, as well as for the refinement of his organic forms. From his initial training as a sculptor, he has kept this innate aptitude for dialogue between space and object.
The duality between artistic vision and meticulous rigor, nature and the city, functionality and emotion flows seamlessly through his projects, whether in interior architecture (the Sketchà in London, the Air France lounges, the chalet at La Transhumance) or in the design of furniture or objects (published by Ceccotti, Bernhardt Design, Ligne Roset, La Chance, Hermès, Saint-Louis, Revol), but also tailor-made for private clients or cultural institutions such as the Villa Medici.
His work has always flourished in collaboration and dialogue with craftsmen and craftswomen, and this approach takes on even more cultural and emotional depth today.
In order to reconnect with nature and weave a sensitive link between man and his environment, he chose to move to Lisbon in 2017. From this immersion was born the Made in Situ project. Through its various chapters and encounters––to date the black ceramics of Tondela Barro Negro, the cork from the Algarve Burnt Cork, the Azulejos of Viuva Lamego, the bronze of Peniche and the beeswax candles of Fatima, Bronze & Beeswax––Made In Situ explores, through the prism of the designer's eyes, a variety of territories, geological, artisanal, economic and cultural. A travel diary that can only be extended, in France or elsewhere.
–Words by Anne-France Berthelon, translated to English.