Anaïs Hervé & Arthur Ristor, The guards

This is a two-part installation: a room in the heart of the Ancien Évéché (the old bishop’s palace) echoes an installation displayed in the window of the Cours Lafayette.
The whole evokes the density of modern cities, the electric cables swarming, neon lights crackling, the flows, the networks, the tangle of artificial lights, a night that’s constantly awake. In a vertical hubbub, everything coexists: the new rubs shoulders with the old, a messy, vibrant pile, and strange silhouettes watch over the horizon.
In the window, the first scene of this installation offers a dense, luminous setting, teeming with colour and detail. The verticality of the elements, truncated by the framing, and the successive layers superimposed in depth, create the appearance of a miniature theatre. In the background of this scene, an object sparkles and beckons. The chattering presence of the guards and their shimmering looks conceal the strange glow from our view.
In the second scene, in the final layer of this setting, the object appears. A crown that looks like a chimney smoke extractor stands on a stele: the hubbub gives way to a ceremonial decorum, at odds with the guards’ room. The whole focuses on the central, glittering gem.
This project was carried out in collaboration with the Maisons Lesage Tweed and Goossens, in collaboration with Chanel’s Métiers d’art at 19M. With this project, we wanted to combine the expertise of these two exceptional Maisons with our respective techniques: stained-glass and beadwork. In partnership with Maison Lesage, we came up with a range of tweeds in bright colours and eclectic materials to adorn the architectural elements. Together with Goossens, we designed a crown in a shape inspired by a smoke extractor, reinterpreted using the Maison’s materials and techniques.