Belgian artist Arne Quinze has completed the interior of a store for L'Eclaireur in Paris.

The interior is clad in two tons of wooden planks and uses recycled elements including printer plates.

Animations are screened on 147 video screens embedded in the walls.

More about Arne Quinze on Dezeen:

Die Kunstbar
The Traveller
The Sequence
Stilthouses and Bidonvilles at Design Miami
Ferrer Store
Rebirth
Arne Quinze at La Galerie de Pierre Bergé & Associés
Arne Quinze at Swarovski Crystal Palace
Gallery 113
Mutagenesis

Photographs are by Dave Bruel.

Here's some more information from Arne Quinze:

--

40 RUE DE SEVIGNE PARIS

« This place inspires us to dream. Going further each time, that’s our luxury. Without any affiliation to what already exists. Instigate research, relations, amazement. Making a difference in finding the right expression of the moment »

« This is not just a shop, it’s an experience. The project grew as a dream fed by emotions, history and memories. It is a fantasy in which I hope everyone will find a story for themselves »

THE VISIONARY COUPLE

In 1980, Armand Hadida opens his first point of sale in the basement of a gallery on the Champs Elysées. For him a way to affirm his chosen path by proposing clothes of designers embodying the brightness in fashion for the upcoming decennia. He becomes the first distributor of brands like Girbaud, Prada, Helmut Lang, John Galliano, Ann Demeulemeester, Dries Van Noten, Martin Margiela in France. Since then, l’Eclaireur has opened four other shops established as true venues, meeting points for all the aficionados being terrified of only one word : « shopping ».

The nineties bring about a new challenge, the opening of the boutique in ‘rue des Rosiers’, with a strong eclectic collection. Hadida introduces the « Antwerp 6 » together with names as Sipek, Dubreuil, Starck, Comme des Garçons, Hussein Chalayan etc… An important step forward. Pioneers in combining design and fashion, pioneers in breaking away with the traditional distribution system, Armand & Martine Hadida gave a new direction to the highly banalised profession of « retail selling ». Extremely sharp-edged choices and a service dedicated to the needs of the specific client serve as the basic principles of the couple. At L’Eclaireur the client is invited to take part in a story where creators appear to be actors.

Still located in the Marais in 2000 a new L’Eclaireur solely concentrating on men’s fashion opens its doors in rue Malher. A year later in 2001, the fearless couple endeavours a new challenge opening Hérold (place des Victoires )without any windows, without a name and without any visibility in the street. « In this space we only wanted to put the exclusive character of the designers in the spotlights instead of focussing on a large marketing campaign…» Intuition and their instinct how to create a difference mark the force of this visionary duo.

At L’Eclaireur, first of all the client is welcomed as the host of the venue. Martine Hadida believes you can only grow by fascinating encounters and passing on the passion of presenting artistic creations rather than merely showing collections. « Blazing more nobility in our places. Transpose the talent of those who launch new trends in the world of fashion. When we possess this magnificent seeds, we have to let them cultivate in an authentic composition » illuminates Armand Hadida. In 2008, L’Eclaireur established rue Boissy d’Anglas, revisiting the spirit of Faubourg between Lanvin and Hermès. Refering to the magic of Fornasetti intensifies a luxury based on the art of surprising people. L’Eclaireur turns the cards and opens a restaurant in a decor based on the archives of this illusionist.

ARNE QUINZE
THE GREAT MUTATOR

Impossible doesn’t exist in Arne Quinze’s dictionary. Quinze is intrigued by ongoing rhythms in cities and people’s lives. In every culture he comes across he unravels these physical processes drawing inspiration for his oeuvre that is fueled by overwhelming positivism.

Arne Quinze is born on the 15th of December in Ghent, Belgium. He realizes his ideas with verve and is able to generate crossovers between art and architecture. Founder of Studio Arne Quinze, the conceptuel architecture and design platform, Arne Quinze is a self-taught man who’s talent manifests in multiple disciplines: contemporary art, video installations, modern transporations techniques and spaces like Square Brussels Meeting Centre (2009), die kunstbar in Cologne (2008) and upcoming a grand conceptual architecture masterplan for Belair, a 100000 square meters location in Brussels. Nevertheless these crossovers Arne Quinze stays foremost an artist.

His futuristisc objects and concepts portrays a personality above the ordinary. His strength lies in capturing all the metamorphoses of the twenty first century by including high technological procedures and recycling elements (wood, concrete, slats, nails) and by mixing luxurious fabrics and plastic racks in his work. Arne Quinze’s public installations entirely built up out of wooden planks are mushrooming. Gigantic sculptures such as Cityscape (2007), The Sequence (2008), Uchronia (revealed in the Nevada desert), The Traveller for Louis Vuitton in Munich, The Big Four Bridge, installed on an old railroad bridge connecting two cities and even two states: Louisville (in Kentucky) and Jeffersonville (in Indiana) are also impressive projects on his resume. People feel interconnected only by looking at the entangled wooden sticks. Amazed by the enormous scale of the installations people come walking in the installations think about what’s going on and meet each other again.

As land is becoming a scarce commodity Quinzecreated ‘Stilt Houses’, hammered together in driftwood, keeping themselves delicately upright on stilts. Their irregularities, jagged contour and variation in colour embodies the pursuit of people looking for uniqueness. A reality check of how the world and the behaviour of human beings can be perceived today. Bidonvilles and Stilthouses stand for how we live in modern civilization yet installations like Cityscape, The Sequence, Uchronia, The Traveller and The Big Four Bridge provide the answer on how society should be organised. Bring people together to counter the isolationism.

L’ESPACE SÉVIGNÉ, A RENEWED AND SPECTACULAR SELLING POINT

In 2009 L’Eclaireur dares to take it to another level. L’Eclaireur undertakes a new challenge by entrusting the realization the their new venue to Arne Quinze. Not a simple boutique but a remarkable interactive installation where every visitor will undergo their specific experience is being manufactured. In the secrecy of the contemporary architecture of this place and the used modern technique answers have to be sought and the selection of Armand and Martine have to be discovered. Reality and illusion inter-play constantly. By night, the venue even can become a gallery, a genuine experimental place journeying on the pace of the video installation.

More than two tons of wooden planks were delivered before the scenography was shaped in the form of an organic sculpture and the walls were hung with 147 animated video screens. Yet in their current form they seem weightless. Like an imaginary city in a city, the spaces impresses by transcending the power of the moving lines, the interplay of light and dark, and its perspective that shatters the normal code of « retail ».

To contradict the usual merchandising standards of the ninties, Armand Hadida mixed fashion accessories with unique collector items or pieces from China or other exotique parts of the world like he had seen in the dressing room of one of his friends.

« I love ordered chaos » explains Armand Hadida. He’s attentive to offer a more sensual, exquisite approach of fashion and in general reflecting the same spirt in a way of life. Construction almost took a year: recycled elements, wooden planks, printer plates, painted paperboards glowing like coach work and varnished with polyurethane giving the materials this incomparable irregular effect are implemented with highly advanced technology… On top of that the effect is intensified by the use of video screens or modular LED light by Zumtobel.

In an astonishing and multidisciplinary partnership, L’Eclaireur welcomes, as one of first in Paris, the famous and bewaited Surface table of Microsoft. A first stone between two universes coming together, over the next weeks the table will evolve in relation to the renewes space rue Sévingé. Just like it will interact with the installation Windows Experience of Electronic Shadow inaugurated on the same day at the new head office of Microsoft in Issy-les-Moulineaux. The boarders between user experience, design, art and technologie, between reality and the imaginary have never been this unchained.

ELECTRONIC SHADOW’S
ROOM BOOK

At the heart of the space, the Roombook, an eye-catching piece signed by the artists of Electronic Shadow, let’s the visitor to see the other side of the mirror. Naziha Mestaoui and Yacine Ait Kaci had been given carte blanche to install this projection on a the screen which is to become a creation over time as all the different chapters are not written yet.

The first chapter, Echo and Narcissus, est une installation confronting the visitor with an intimite visualisation of the geographical statistiques in real time in a large gap between oneselve and the world, Echo and Narcissus. Population, energy, expenditure, all these statistics become real to fill the basin of their waves. A reflection is provoked by the light wherein everyone can detect l’echo of the world.

Since 2000 Electronic Shadow works on the fusion between space and digital images. While displaying this hybrid reality the focus lies on fusing these worlds on the fine line of the imaginary and poetry writing. The creations of the collective are known all over the wolrd and they won several prices, like the grand price of the Japanese Media Art Festival. As a result of their eclectic style they are well received in the contemporary art and architecture scene.

Two of their projects, Double Vision with Carolyn Carlson and Futurinô with the collective Rinôçèrôse are still touring.

In 2004 they met Martine and Armand Hadida in Milan where Electronic Shadow was exhibiting at Salone del Mobile, the furniture fair. From then on the desire existed to work together one day. Today, this cooperation resulted in the concept to see a space as a book where the readers, spectators and actors are invited to glance through. While reading that ‘book’ they come across regularly replaced virtual installations. Soon the experience will also, next to the installation in rue de Sévigné, be revealed on the internet.

ARNE QUINZE ON HIS BEST
ABOUT THE PLACE

« It’s not a shop, it’s an experience. It’s not a decor and not an artwork, but it’s absolutely an expression. It will be up to the people to make it their own. My biggest joy would be if they would undergo an imaginary travel in their heads. I’ve filmed the eyes of my wife Barbara Becker which I’ve smurred in mud. You can’t see if it’s an animal or a human presence while the video is projected non stop. Behind a box of plexiglas the effect of transparancy suddenly reveals the body which can come as shock to certain viewers. »

HISTORY OF AN ENCOUNTER

« About five years ago I met Armand by accident in Stockholm while I was giving a lecture. Immediately we clicked. A friendship grew. We go on vacation together. We’ve learned to know each other, the two of us exactly know what the other one likes and dislikes. Without such a complicity this project would have neverseen the living daylight. We dare to go further, turn a page, close a chapter and start over. I love visonaries, people who make something of their life, in the name of passion which inspires them to go on. »

RESEARCH, OBSESSIONS, EMOTIONS

« Deconstruct doesn’t stand for breaking down, but it symbolizes a dismantlement to reconnect the people again. Look in the cities, they are alone behind their computers. The idea of interacting on squares or marketplaces is losing territory. In my mind, I live between my sculp-tures and my Bidonvilles. I’m really interestedin the borders people set up for themselves. In fact, this is what I brought to rue de Sevigné, the creation of walls between the walls, boxes in boxes and limits without limits. I adore to provoke with plain contradictions. To combine technology with recycled material, to associate the light and the gray, so only the lines are visible and then you notice the shades. Only by looking closer the relief appears.Beyond the first sensation of chaos, other sensations arouse. It’s tactile, sensual, soft…it seems like skin.

by Studio Arne Quinze
copywriting Sieghild Lacoere,
Laurence Benaïm
photography Dave Bruel
graphic design Pieterjan Mattan