Florence Doléac

The Beau Sapin/Beautiful Fir

2009

Häagen-Dazs

Speculoos ice creams Caramel Biscuit and Cream and Macadamia Nut Britt; christmas tree in dark chocolate powder with white chocolate, crunchy base

This mountain of refined ice symbolizes a fresh, flawless nature, icon of a wintry landscape. The dream of letting a tasty and chocolate-sprinkled mountain of ice melt in one’s mouth becomes reality. A small fir tree stands salient on a mountain top. Bringing a “landscape” into the house is somewhat incongruous. Here, the fir tree is served up on the table!

Florence Doléac sets her work in an interstitial space where design hobnobs with art, and where presentation and production methods waver between a system that is both commercial and institutional. The fact that she lays claim to this not very common stance endows her with a specific identity. The fact is that not only does Florence Doléac introduce a tension between production and exhibition, with answers that brim with wit and poetry, but she also develops a line of questioning about function and its contrasting counterpart: uselessness. Her proposals and ideas sidestep established codes in order to upset the way we usually perceive things; she intercepts our gestures by putting a finger on their limits. The incongruousness of the various situations thus created refers us to our own imagination, thus lightening a reality that is far too straitjacketed.