Laurent Le Deunff
∗1977, France
Laurent Le Deunff has a marked preference for traditional art and crafts, which he often uses with the intention of generating perceptual trickery, playing on the discrepancy between materials and depicted objects. His sculptural and graphic works often become part of site-specific installations. Le Deunff often realises site-specific installations in which he combines sculptural and graphic works, as inMy Prehistoric Past(2022), where he explored common forms of natural history display in museums, such as dioramas, trompe-l’oeils and cabinets of curiosities, by embedding his sculptures, drawings and bas-reliefs in immersive landscapes. In a play of surprising forms, materials and scales, Le Deunff creates images and stories, questioning concepts such as replica and “fake” between artisanal and industrial production and between profane and sacred meanings.At the entrance to the offices of the Biennale Gherdëina in the artisanal area of Pontives, Le Deunff recreated the scenery of a fairytale forest using earth andt ree bark, dead leaves, moss and various species of green plants and saplings as a continuation of his 2021 installationThe Mystery of Sculpting Cats.Visitors walkalong a kind of small path, encountering three sculpted heads of animals thatthe artist places on plinths akin to tombstone effigies: a snow owl, a crocodile and a snail. The sculptures were made using the rocailles technique, popular in nineteenth-century France, in which concrete is carved to make the objects lookas if they were made of wood. In this surreal scenario, the use of this technique transports us into a world somewhere between the pet cemetery, the grotesque andthe kitsch decorations that characterise certain small gardens. The construction of this micro-park inside a modern building in the artisanal area of Val Gardena, in an area known exclusively for its beautiful natural landscape and its centuries-old tradition of woodcarving, reminds us that things are not always what they seem.
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