shapeshifting nature
Episode 01: Shapeshifting Nature → listen as Bodega Ltd.’s Creative Director Liz Gardner, and Senior Designer Mad Lenaburg chat about recontextualizing nature into objects of culture.
We have a fascination with recontextualization. This is by definition “taking something from its usual context and resituating it in an unfamiliar context.” We would go so far as to extend this to include “As an aesthetic practice. A discourse across boundaries. Relating to time and space. The internet.” In this episode, Shapeshifting Nature (a companion to a full-length essay within our subscriber portal. Non-subscribers can view an excerpt here. ), we explore how objects of nature become objects of culture when they change medium and the linguistic implications of this transfer.
Transcript
-
Mad Lenaburg: If there's this broader theme of objects of culture taking on forms of nature, some of these pieces evoke illusion by mimicking nature and deceiving in such likeness, by doing so, and some focus on revealing their artifice. They do not strive to mimic so precisely. So that if everything in this collection is an example of this intention, of taking on forms of nature, they differ in their methods of execution.
So these glass flowers were commissioned for the Harvard Museum of Natural History, and they kind of operate in that one category of tricking the eye through such likeness. And it was really such a marvel at the time because of how remarkably anatomically accurate they were. Prior to this, many models for botany were crudely approximating what they were intending to represent out of materials like paper mache. So the precise resemblance of the Blaschka flowers render the glass invisible. We actually have to be reminded of their medium because they are, in fact, copies of nature. And we can think of original and copy as mutually dependent terms because the idea of an original supposes the existence of a copy, and there would be no copies if there wasn't an original. The glass flowers are exact proportional reproductions of the original. And the other end of the spectrum is work that has been intentionally manipulated during production. They exemplify a shift in medium from original to copy.
There are so many material properties to choose from when you're representing something, and they exhibit that consciousness by deciding to mimic precisely in some of those material properties and then choosing to branch out or to go into the material they're working with in others.
Liz Gardner: I do feel like that transition between mediums is such an interesting exploration of recontextualization. I think it's something that's really innate in humans, like kind of just asking a question like, why are we compelled to do this? Because it's not necessarily because we're trying to define language. There is that element. I think that that's something that we kind of overlay afterwards when we’re like, Why did we do this? But I think it's almost rooted in almost like the still life practice of Dutch paintings, where it was like, these are all of my objects. I'm going to study light and how they are affected by them, and I'm going to capture that in this medium. That's the sort of, like, almost recontextualizing of this environment into another medium. And I think these, specifically the Jean-Paul Gourdon and the Dodie Thayer, like, asparagus made in ceramic or lettuce dinnerware. It's kind of a modern version of that. And so then we're able to live with these items that are in a different material and experience them in a different way. And there's opportunities to kind of get meta with a recontextualization, like a whole tablescape of lettuceware with lettuce canapes on top of them. It's this kind of interesting human curiosity that I think that we have had for a really long time,
ML: Or even the shift between art and design, like painting something for the visual sake and then the introduction of function adds a level of activity. You know, I mean, eating a hamburger off of a lettuce plate.
LG: It makes me think about - because everything comes back to pop culture - it makes me think about Rick Rubin's daily Instagram that he posts. One that just always sticks in my mind is about creating and editing are two different processes. So to me, the idea of making these items in a different material is that creating and then trying to understand it or put that linguistic framework is almost the editing. It's like putting it into a context of language.
ML: Right, and through the lens of language and editing, because Dodie Thayer chose to take on the original hues and form of her source inspiration, the lettuce is still recognizable. So in that way, the nameable organism survives the material translation.
LG: Dali’s flatware, I feel like, is such a standout part of his expression of this idea. It's definitely like a snail that now becomes a spoon that you use for eating escargot. So it's almost like, in its function, it's being recontextualized. What I find super interesting about this collection of objects is that their function isn't reduced like this snail fork, still supremely functional, but there's such a delight in it.
Kind of teeing up another artist who kind of operated in this way, is Claude Lalanne, who is part of the husband and wife duo who fused fantasy and function in their work that was inspired by flora and fauna.
ML: So in 2019, Sotheby's hosted a two day auction of Lalanne’s private collection, and they do these pre-estimates, and there were 274 pieces, and it was expected to bring in $24.4 million. But in the end, the sale price was $101 million, which is quadruple the estimate. One of the most famous pieces from Lalanne’s collection are their sheep. Anyway, but one of these sheep was sold for $882,000. There are other kinds of sheep you can auction on. In this distinction between original and copy, the context fully defines their roles. So, Lalanne may have sought inspiration on the pasture and actually used real wool, but his sheep were revered original works of art, and that's backed by many arguments, including the price tag. And as an original, his sheep produce Etsy copies. So even in the pasture, a lamb takes on its mother's genes. And so in any context, original and copy constantly rely upon one another.
LG: So Claude Lalanne also collaborated with YSL for his 1969 Haute Couture collection. She made a series of galvanic copper casts of supermodel Varushka's bust and hips, that were worn on the runway with flowing chiffon dresses underneath.
ML: So the result of her efforts in preserving and submerging these leaves and petals was this custom jewelry that would attach to copper fingertips and ear ornaments, which, through doing so, transformed nature into adornment. And it's a way of duplicating the body in metal on the wearer's flesh.
I mean, Salonnière is also so much about time arcs. And I think what's so timely with this article and these pieces is that the YSL Spring Summer 2021 Ready-To-Wear Collection re-released a lot of those pieces.
“There’s this opportunity to look at trends in this larger arc of time, and I think this one specifically really reinforces that...This is a collection that was originally made in 1969. It’s being reissued in 2021. It’s just as compelling now as it was then. Some could argue that because of its sort of biomimetic roots. Nature is a timeless thing. It has no shelf life. But I think there’s so much to learn from this as sort of a case study of time and trends.”
LG: There's this opportunity to look at trends in this larger arc of time, and I think this one specifically really reinforces that. Like you're saying Mad, this is a collection that was originally made in 1969. It's being reissued in 2021. It's just as compelling now as it was then. Some could argue that because of its sort of biomimetic roots. Nature is a timeless thing. It has no shelf life. But I think there's so much to learn from this as sort of a case study of time and trends.
It’s interesting too, to look at YSL as more of a Haute Couture kind of take on this. There are also more indie designers like Sophie Buhai, who's kind of exploring this as well with her casting her favorite friend's nose and turning it into a pin, a Nautilus inspired comb. I think these themes also from that trends perspective, there's still a lot to explore within them. Daniel Roseberry, who's artistic director of Schiaparelli, also pulled from the brand's surrealist roots for Spring Summer 2021 Ready to Wear and Haute Couture collections. So making super-heroin breastplates modeled from a pair of lifelike mannequins Schiaparelli kept in her salon. He states that it's not about being a man at all, it's about being a jacked woman.
ML: So Schiaparelli’s golden fingers and molded face plates and fake eyes are really reminiscent of Dali and Lalanne’s doubling of the body in an effort to celebrate our natural selves by evoking whimsy and imagination in their interpretations
SOURCES
1Glass Flowers Harvard Gazette
2Wedgewood Pottery Pearlware painting-box.com
3Jean-Paul Gourdon Soup Tureen norasibley.com
4Dodie Thayer Lettuce Ware Sotheby's
5Course in General Linguistics Diagram Ferdinand de Saussure
6Salvador Dalí’s Surrealist Jewels Sotheby's
7Salvador Dalí’s Menagere Cutlery Set Sotheby's
8François-Xavier and Claude Lalanne Posing with Sheep Willy Rizzo
9François-Xavier Lalanne’s Mouton de Laine Sotheby's
10@Rockinglamb Life-Size Sheep Etsy
11Yves Saint Laurent in Les Lalanne Backyard Sotheby's
12Claude Lalanne’s Bejeweled Flora and Fauna Sotheby's
13Schiaparelli SS 2021 Couture Courtesy of Schiaparelli
14Schiaparelli SS 2021 Ready-to-Wear Courtesy of Schiaparelli