Vessels & Catastrophes

Giles Bailey, Fiona Banner aka the Vanity Press, Taemin Lee, Phung-Tien Phan, Le Bar sous le toit – with a film work by Maria Lassnig

Info: Charlotte Perriand’s manifesto Wood or Metal was first published April 1929 in The Studio (no. 441, pp. 278–79). In its original form the text included a selection of words that were intentionally capitalized. Perriand presented Le Bar sous le toit (the bar under the stars) to the public in the context of the Autumn Salon of 1927. The set up emulated her own apartment’s hallway located at Place Saint Sulpice. Its low roof, typical element for a Parisian apartment at the time, enclosed a corner equipped with a curved bar counter. A large square window served as dividing point between two slabs protruding from the wall surface. Stools, a couch and a low table positioned on the opposite side of the bar completed a meeting space within this domestic environment. The bar had a bright metal finish and was made of steel. The leather armchairs were made with leather in pink and blue hues, giving a rather industrial feeling to the space, moving further away from the conventional context of a residential interior. (…)