NOW YOU SEE IT: Le Bon Marché is tying itself in knots over its new art exhibition.
The Paris department store has invited Leandro Erlich, the Argentine artist famed for employing optical illusions in his work, to create several installations, the most striking of which makes its famed escalator look as twisted as a pretzel.
Erlich has paid homage to the City of Light’s changing skies by filling its windows with wispy cloudlike shapes. Surreal cloud formations will be projected on a giant screen erected under the store’s glass roof. Meanwhile, a bank of fake elevators promises to further scramble visitors’ perception.
“I am mainly interested in transforming elements that you believe can’t be transformed, can’t be different. It’s about the utopia of presenting the possibility of transforming what exists into something else, and this action invites us to imagine reality in a different way,” the artist told WWD.
Leandro Erlich’s installation at Le Bon Marché.
Courtesy/Gabriel de La Chapelle
The site-specific installation was inspired by the “iconic” quality of the central escalator, designed by Andrée Putman in 1990, which Erlich — who used to live in Paris — considers as recognizable as the Eiffel Tower, albeit on a smaller scale.
Scheduled to run from Jan. 12 to
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