Duramen detail
French sculpture/design squad Bonsoir Paris have truly done it with their newest project Duramen, taking what we might describe as regular wood and turning it into say, dripping melted chocolate, purely through the power of their craft.
These sculptures, strangely reminiscent of a Dalí painting I once liked, redefine how far furniture can travel into the realm of pure art. Each are carved by hand using such fine wood oak, pine and pear. Their decorating idiom notwithstanding, these guys are able to take a substance we’re overly familiar with and transform it to something else entirely, something sexy, something delicious.
It’s a powerful form of control over environment, but what I love about it is how it makes you look at things a little differently, how it blows up your perception and forces you to re-identify things you think you know. Perhaps, that’s what they had in mind. Either way, I still want to pour their sculptures over ice cream and eat them up.
