Francois Dallegret

Exhibition walkthrough with Francois Dallegret, Saturday May 21 at 3pm followed by a roundtable with curator Francois Perrin, architectural critic Mimi Zeiger and professor and associate Dean of the Schol of Architecture at Woodbury University Ingalill Wahlroos-Ritter The work of Francois Dallegret, a French Montreal-based artist and architect, defies simple categorization.  It ranges from the design of chairs, night clubs, bars of soap, cars and machines, complex line drawings of vehicles and other apparatus to proposals for shopping center and light installations.In his own words (he speaks rarely and states that his company GOD&CO does not speak but engages) Francois Dallegret’s work is “out of computerizing and out of line. Its production goes beyond the possible, he artificializes the reality and offers wondrous freedom. It is a call for mental mutation, appealing the other side for a multitude of sights out of evidence”. Dallegret is best known for his collaboration with architectural critic Reyner Banham, author of “Los Angeles, The Architecture of four Ecologies” in their article “A Home is Not a House” that was published in 1965 in the magazine Art in America including the iconic drawing of the Environmental Bubble. It exemplified the utopian visions that architects, artists and designers were developing in the sixties, ranging from a belief in new technologies (Yves Klein, Buckminster Fuller) to a new, radical use of the land (Superstudio, Robert Smithson). This exhibition will allow a new generation to physically experience these drawings more than fifty years after their publication, as well as a visual selection of his built and unbuilt projects during these five decades. While the range and scale of Dallegret’s work is breathtakingly diverse, it is always thought-provoking and engaging. From the curvaceous nightclub design for “Le Drug,” which announces future explorations in non-Euclidean space, to the body-centered designs of his furniture and installations, Dallegret has influenced multiple generations of architects and designers. Dallegret’s body of work brings us back to a time when artists and designers were dreamers and wanted to change the world in a radical way. The comical, critical and sometime cynical aspect of his work is a breath of fresh air in a design world that sometimes takes itself too seriously, and brings back a healthy dose of poetry when it is much needed.

Francois Perrin is an architect, curator and educator based in Los Angeles.  He has organized exhibitions internationally including Yves Klein’s Air Architecture at the MAK Center for Art and Architecture in Los Angeles.

The World Upside-Down has been made possible by a Grant from The Graham Foundation for advances Studies in the Fine Arts, The Canadian Center for Architecture, The Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Québec, and a contribution from Dorothy Lichtenstein. The curator would like to thank Mike Calvert for the graphic design work, Jalal Poehlman of Poehlman Digital Press for the prints and Eviana Hartman for copy editing.