French contemporary artist Le Gentil Garcon’s new work, Smart Objects, is now on display at the Hermès store at Liat Towers, Singapore, where visitors are welcomed by a schematic human head occupying the entire space of the store’s main window.
Inspired by the busts used in the study of phrenology, the French artist plays with compartmentalization of the head into “cells” in the manner of a phrenology map. In each one, an Hermès object is presented to evoke cerebral activity such as poetry and humour. “I realised that this idea of a playful representation of the human mind matched very well with the Hermès theme of this year: Sense of the Object,” says Le Gentil Garçon of the exhibition.
This “thought is both linked to the memory and to the life of the creator of the company, and to an historic know-how. Furthermore, Hermès products often hide very smart and fun tricks that you won’t discover at the first glance (a detail on the back of a tie, a clever clasp mechanism on a bag…) We can say that they are smart objects, they’re the expression of a certain sense of both elegance and intelligence. The name of my project refers also to the ‘smart objects’, a name used in drawing software to define virtual objects (lines, points, guides, etc) which possess useful specific properties. ‘Smart Objects’ is also an allusion to the two meanings of the word ‘smart’: cleverness and elegance, that are also at my opinion, two qualities of Hermès products.â€
Smart Objects will be on display until June, 2017
