EXHIBITION
Comfort Zones is the first of a series of three exhibitions proposing different perspectives of the Centre nacional des arts plastiques – Cnap, which is running until the 17th of April of 2016 at the Galerie Poirel in Nancy, France. The exhibition is the result of a partnership between the city of Nancy, Galerie Poirel and the Cnap. The commissary is by Juliette Pollet, curator in charge of the Cnap design and decorative arts collection, and Gaëlle Gabillet & Stéphane Villard from Studio GGSV, also responsible for the scenography. Photographs by Michel Giesbrecht
The exhibition goal is to invite visitors to explore the home of a collector and suggests different ways to experience comfort. The objects are spread throughout the exhibition taking their place on a grand stage where they simultaneously serve as the set, the actors and the props. The entire exhibition is a play in four acts with one intermission. In the Office, functional objects project an image of ‘modern comfort’. These material possessions are designed to improve consumers’ daily life by relieving them of laborious tasks. The Reception area presents as a vast living room, adorned with furniture designed to give the weary a place to rest. The Play Area brings together objects that trade in pure functionalism for fun and triviality. Lastly, the Antechamber turns our understanding of well-being on its head by raising certain contemporary quandaries. Halfway through the exhibit, visitors have the chance to test out different pieces of furniture at a break area on the mezzanine level. Here, they can also experience L’Écouteur, a modern-day interpretation of music rooms created by Laurent Massaloux and JeanYves Leloup. The majority of the objects displayed were designed to satisfy our minds and bodies. They reveal the nature of our domestic activities and concerns. While projecting a sense of familiarity, the exhibition invites visitors to reconsider the shapes and uses of the objects that make up the environment around us. Comfort Zones places mass-manufactured products, comfort produced in standardised forms, alongside works that upset the standard models. In doing so, the exhibition reflects two contemporary movements in design: the search for solutions and the formulation of critiques. Comfort Zones is the product of a partnership between the city of Nancy, Galerie Poirel and the Cnap. It is the first in a series of three exhibitions that will offer different perspectives on the Cnap’s design collection. http://www.poirel.nancy.fr/accueil/
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