Furniture or sculpture? Le Gall blurs the line

ANCIENT Greek mythology tells the story of the Queen Pasiphae who was cursed by the god Poseidon to fall in love with a bull. Desperate to seduce the bull, the queen concealed herself in a hollow wooden structure in the shape of a cow. Nine months later, she gave birth to the Minotaur, a half-man half-bull monstrosity that fed on human flesh and had to be locked away in a vast labyrinth.   

For celebrated French designer Hubert Le Gall, the story is both grotesque and beautiful, and serves as the perfect inspiration for a sculptural piece of furniture he calls Pasiphae. Made out of bronze, the sofa-like sculpture takes on the imagined shape of the wooden cow, with stick legs and an appended horn. The Pasiphae is one of the highlights of Daydream, an exhibition at Cuturi Gallery of 25 creations which consistently blurs the distinction between furniture and sculpture. 

Le Gall says: “I’ve always been drawn to the mysteries of the natural world as well as the stories that evolve around it. Many of my designs are influenced by animal forms and the kinds of narratives that have emerged from different cultures.”

In one eye-catching pendant light titled Chaos-crocodylus, an aluminium crocodile is suspended from the ceiling and split in half, with bouquets of porcelain flowers spilling out from her, illuminated by warm light. Again, Le Gall is driven by the juxtaposition of the beautiful and the grotesque to create statement pieces for the home. 

Elsewhere, he’s designed a console in the shape of a horse chasing an apple, a “symbol of our desires”. He says: “Life is a journey, as represented by the running horse, while the apple represents our wants, something we continue to chase all our lives… I often think of my pieces as metaphors of our experience.”

Observers have found it hard to categorise his creations as either furniture or art, since they resemble sculptures but have distinct everyday functionalities. Le Gall has been invited to collaborate with top French brands such as Dior and Hermes, and his pieces have also been acquired by museums and auctioned by Sotheby’s and Christie’s.

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The exhibition at Cuturi Gallery runs from now till Jun 22.