François-Xavier Lalanne

Claude and François-Xavier Lalanne, Ury

Thence by descent to the present owner

Les Lalanne, exhibition catalogue, JGM. Galerie, Paris, May-June 2002, on cover

François-Marie Banier and Jean-Gabriel Mitterrand, La maison-atelier de Claude et François-Xavier Lalanne, Montreuil, 2018, p. 40-41 and 61 

With Gorille Dérangé, François-Xavier Lalanne offers his primitive yet meditative vision of the animal. Sculpted in Burgundy stone, our bust stands in silent strength. Its fixed gaze, charged with an imposing intensity, seems to have stood the test of time.

This work is part of a series devoted by the artist to the simian figure - from the Babouin to the Singes attentifs and Singes alternatifs - in which the animal becomes a mirror of our own enigmas. For François-Xavier Lalanne, monkeys are never anecdotal: they concentrate strength, gravity and silent wisdom.

Here, the interplay of volumes and clean lines lends our work a monumental, almost totemic presence. Gorille Dérangé stands out as an emblem of the artist's poetic and mysterious bestiary.

A free and passionate heir to the great tradition of animal sculpture, Francois-Xavier Lalanne extends its spirit with a certain poetry tinged with mystery.