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拍品专文
Tord Boontje's Fig Leaf Wardrobe is a unique and enchanting work at the intersection of ultra-contemporary design and artisanal skill, a tour de force of materiality and the enduring potentials of traditional craftsmanship in storytelling and creative design. The wardrobe, designed by Boontje for Meta, a contemporary art division of the London-based antiques house Mallett, creates a visual spectacle through structure and material mastery, showcasing the abilities of artisans in enameling, bronze casting, iron forging, and silk weaving in a showcase of transformation and technical ability.
To execute Boontje's vision, master craftsman from England and France were brought together to work on the wardrobe. The doors, consisting of an iron-forged skeleton of leaves and vines, support 616 hand-enameled leaves shaped in pure copper. The leaves were enameled one by one by artisans at Chelsea Enamels, who relied on skill and experience to create the brilliant colors, as enamel is applied in the blind with white power on a white ground, with colors only revealed when fired. For the careful shaping of the leaves, the production bought out the entire supply of pure copper in the UK for the year, hiding it in an unmarked tent in the middle of a field in fear it would be stolen. Once shaped in copper and enameled, the leaves were then applied on the iron support through a carefully numbered star chart, used to precisely place the leaves according to shape, size, and volume to achieve the cascading effect of glistening leaves, concealing the hidden scene within. Inside: a naked tree, sculpted by French sculptor Patrick Blanchard, was first carved in wood and then cast in bronze through the lost wax technique. The lonely tree stands at the foreground of a hand-dyed jacquard silk landscape, executed by the Gainsborough Silk Weaving Company of Sudbury in Suffolk, transforming the green ground to blue sky in an elegant woven gradient.
The naturalistic effect of Tord Boontje's Fig Leaf Wardrobe is breathtaking, inspired by 19th century artisans producing artificial flora and fauna, a practice popular with the Victorians. However, trompe l'oeil as a test of artistic mastery dates back further to classical times, described by Pliny the Elder in his Natural History through a competition between the painters Zeuxis and Parrhasius. Parhasius loses when he reaches to open Zeuxis's curtain-covered painting, only to realize the curtain had been painted on. Amongst Renaissance masters, trompe l'oeil and illusionistic effects similarly became tests of artistic ability, with Boontje's wardrobe following this age-old, longstanding tradition amongst artists.
Beyond its material detailing, the construction itself tells a story in a performance of form and function. As the fig leaf doors are drawn open, the tree is stripped of its cover, its naked form revealed to us. The clothes meant to be hung on the empty branches become the leaves that clothe the naked tree, recalling the biblical story of Adam and Eve covering themselves with fig leaves to hide their nakedness after eating the forbidden fruit. Much like raw materials are transformed through the skillful hands of the artisans into the living, breathing leaves and vines that envelope the Fig Leaf Wardrobe, clothes have a similarly transformative quality as they dress the individual, and as they drape on the wardrobe’s inner branches. In this way, the one who opens the wardrobe’s doors becomes part of its fantasy, stepping into the fairytale world carefully curated by Boontje.
To execute Boontje's vision, master craftsman from England and France were brought together to work on the wardrobe. The doors, consisting of an iron-forged skeleton of leaves and vines, support 616 hand-enameled leaves shaped in pure copper. The leaves were enameled one by one by artisans at Chelsea Enamels, who relied on skill and experience to create the brilliant colors, as enamel is applied in the blind with white power on a white ground, with colors only revealed when fired. For the careful shaping of the leaves, the production bought out the entire supply of pure copper in the UK for the year, hiding it in an unmarked tent in the middle of a field in fear it would be stolen. Once shaped in copper and enameled, the leaves were then applied on the iron support through a carefully numbered star chart, used to precisely place the leaves according to shape, size, and volume to achieve the cascading effect of glistening leaves, concealing the hidden scene within. Inside: a naked tree, sculpted by French sculptor Patrick Blanchard, was first carved in wood and then cast in bronze through the lost wax technique. The lonely tree stands at the foreground of a hand-dyed jacquard silk landscape, executed by the Gainsborough Silk Weaving Company of Sudbury in Suffolk, transforming the green ground to blue sky in an elegant woven gradient.
The naturalistic effect of Tord Boontje's Fig Leaf Wardrobe is breathtaking, inspired by 19th century artisans producing artificial flora and fauna, a practice popular with the Victorians. However, trompe l'oeil as a test of artistic mastery dates back further to classical times, described by Pliny the Elder in his Natural History through a competition between the painters Zeuxis and Parrhasius. Parhasius loses when he reaches to open Zeuxis's curtain-covered painting, only to realize the curtain had been painted on. Amongst Renaissance masters, trompe l'oeil and illusionistic effects similarly became tests of artistic ability, with Boontje's wardrobe following this age-old, longstanding tradition amongst artists.
Beyond its material detailing, the construction itself tells a story in a performance of form and function. As the fig leaf doors are drawn open, the tree is stripped of its cover, its naked form revealed to us. The clothes meant to be hung on the empty branches become the leaves that clothe the naked tree, recalling the biblical story of Adam and Eve covering themselves with fig leaves to hide their nakedness after eating the forbidden fruit. Much like raw materials are transformed through the skillful hands of the artisans into the living, breathing leaves and vines that envelope the Fig Leaf Wardrobe, clothes have a similarly transformative quality as they dress the individual, and as they drape on the wardrobe’s inner branches. In this way, the one who opens the wardrobe’s doors becomes part of its fantasy, stepping into the fairytale world carefully curated by Boontje.