"The Marquis who noticed how touched she was by the mere beauties of the living room had yet more treasures to show her. He hoped that further objects would touch her even more, and did not prevent her from running to her destiny," Jean- François de Bastide, La Petite Maison, 1758

Can we seduce with objects ?

Jean-François de Bastide addressed this question in 1758 when he published the novel titled La Petite Maison (The Little House). By seducing the woman he desires with the delicacy and refinement of his furnishings, a man achieves to overthrow all her virtuous barriers.

With the exhibition HOME (very ) SWEET HOME, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac imagines a contemporary apartment in which works of art and design stimulate the spectator’s senses, emotions and Stimmung.

The spectator experiences the movement – Ddays 2014 theme, through the spatial arrangement and flow reminiscent of the pleasure house, as he is led through a corridor of displays. The visitor hence retraces the steps of the two lovers in La Petite Maison, assuming at once their love and their domestic environment. But is this really possible? Aren’t certain spaces merely illusions?

In La Petite Maison, it is the architect Jacques-François Blondel who is pulling the strings of debauchery to inscribe architecture and the decorative arts into the social and moral issues of his time. It is in this same spirit that HOME (very) SWEET HOME proposes to establish a dialogue between artists and designers. The works will hence accompany each viewer, whether he is hunter or prey, in a sensual and intellectual adventure of the soul and body.

*image (left)
© Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac Paris