Mathieu Lehanneur © Maison&Objet

From the Maison&Objet show to the Paris Olympic Games, from his new work space in Ivry-sur-Seine to New York where he inaugurated a new showroom overlooking Central Park, Mathieu Lehanneur is preparing for an intense year. 2024 will be his year! Collected by museums and renowned in circles of initiates and collectors, its design will even receive worldwide recognition on July 26 with the highly anticipated arrival in Paris of the Olympic flame carried by this recycled steel torch that he drew. Caught in the whirlwind of success, this accessible and friendly designer does not forget the imperative need to let inspiration flow through him on a daily basis. He entrusts us with those of the moment.

He is the designer of the torch Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games. He also bears the coveted title of designer of the year awarded by the Maison&Objet show. The year 2024 is indeed a consecration for Mathieu Lehanneur, creator at the crossroads of art, design, technology, lover of side steps. Born in Rochefort in 1974 in a family of seven brothers and sisters, the one who was appointed more than ten years ago to head the Huawei research center, the Chinese consumer technology giant also knows how to serve large causes, for example by creating a fun device (an interactive pillbox) improving the ergonomics of medications or even an air filtering system using plants to help fight pollution. A design for comfort, well-being, care. Several of his creations are part of the collections of Moma, in New York. Recently installed with his teams and his tools in Ivry-Sur-Seine, in a building formerly occupied by EDF and renamed his “Factory”, Mathieu Lehanneur also recently inaugurated in Manhattan, where he maintains a network of passionate collectors, his new gallery, in a space perched high above Central Park. Reversing the balance of power, opening horizons, reinventing codes, celebrating the living, reinventing our relationship with objects, the intentions of its design seem to respond exactly to our needs of the time.

Neo Rauch

Born in the former East Germany in 1960, the artist Neo Rauch composes paintings depicting people, nature and seemingly normal objects. But when we look a little closer, nothing is absolutely normal in his paintings, whether the games of perspective or the games of scale, or even what is happening. We are witnessing a sort of opening towards an unconscious and a world of dreams. The exterior scenes evoke absolutely intimate and unconscious things. Neo Rauch created an enigmatic and strange work which has now earned him international success. The Mo.Co. de Montpellier dedicated a retrospective to him last summer, the first in France despite his fame. We see that surrealism inspired him, but in this case he was also inspired by the communist imagery of the time. I find in his work a bottomless well of inspiration towards the unconscious and a concentration of humanity on all levels. There is also some violence. We sense things that are about to happen, things that appear, never in catastrophe, but always at the tipping point. I also see an allegory of access to information: this telescoping of information in real time forming successions of layers in our minds. In Neo Rauch's painting we feel this ability to superimpose all these layers, things which have nothing to do with each other and which were not supposed to meet. In his painting happens what happens in all of our minds, where everything comes together without us necessarily being able to find meaning in it. A mix of fear, excitement, the familiar and the strange, things that are linked to dreams and a pure reality that is not always bucolic.

Yellow

Named designer of the year Maison&Objet, I created a yellow monochrome installation. Yellow is an intense and vibrant color that expresses radiance and an elsewhere to which we would like to escape. It also has an artificial dimension. In this world where we are more certain to be fascinated by the artificial (in reference to artificial materials, petrochemicals and chemistry in general), this notion of artificial nowadays refers more to the solar and to this which provides energy. A color that is strong today and makes me vibrate. This installation, which was exhibited in mid-January at Maison&Objet, is called “Outonomy”. It deals with survivalism, this movement asking the question of a way of living or surviving a collapse whether ecological, geopolitical, economic... Survivalism exists at very different points of the globe, culturally different, and takes different forms. different. For example, there is this paranoid way in the United States of building reserves, building bunkers and equipping itself with weapons. But there is, in other places on the planet, a more poetic, gentler survivalism. This installation is nourished and inspired by this survivalist approach by asking ourselves: if I had to reinvent myself elsewhere, what would I take with me? What am I willing to give up? Concretely, we see a basic dwelling powered by a domestic wind energy production system. A helium drone, to consume as little energy as possible, also ensures a minimum of security. There is also something to eat and exercise... In short, a sort of survival kit where everything is absolutely yellow, an energizing yellow, vibrant, can be frightening, at the same time bringing hope but not devoid of 'a post-apocalyptic side. We are in a proposal which assumes its fictional side, and which will ask the question to each visitor: “are you ready?” ". I don't know if I'm ready yet, but the idea is gaining ground.

Volleyball

We consume tennis everywhere, football, rugby... But there is one sport that no one cares about, even though it is perhaps the most beautiful: volleyball. I made it my mission to defend him. This sport has fallen far short of what it deserves. It is a collective discipline, touched by grace, both very physical and where no one really touches each other, spectacular in short. I challenge you to be able to name a volleyball player from the French team! I am making the decision today to become an ambassador for volleyball in France. I practiced it when I was 15 years old.

Richard Buckminster Fuller

Richard Buckminster Fuller (1895 – 1983) is a figure who is increasingly important to me. This American architect was also a thinker, engineer, philosopher, and sometimes designer. He created from the forties to the sixties, ending up as a professor. An important figure for me because he never really chose a discipline. He chose instead to participate in the world in which he lived. He is known, for example, for having invented these geodesic domes, domed or iron constructions, one of which exists in Montreal (“the Biosphere” erected at the time of the 1967 Universal Exhibition). An architecture paradoxically adopted both by the cool babas, as shelters lost in the middle of nowhere, and by the American army which used them as bases. He also created objects, such as these maps of the terrestrial globe, offering through their shape another representation of the world. His question was never “where and how does this discipline end?” ". But rather how to react to everything that was happening around him. A free and more than fertile spirit. Few figures are capable of moving at this point from a small technical object to an important architectural object, to a film, to a mass-produced object, to a way of teaching science and technology... In history, there are few minds with this capacity to embrace technical, scientific or societal issues.

The escalator

An object that I love above all is the escalator. We use it almost every day. It is an aesthetically beautiful and absolutely fascinating object except when designers try to redesign it, which is not always successful. For me it is the missing link between pure poetry and the most accomplished function. I have often wondered by what twisted and brilliant mind came the idea of ​​setting in motion the object which by definition is the most static there is. We have known the staircase since the dawn of time, this architectural object which is made for everything except moving around. Except that at one point, a human had the idea of ​​setting it in motion. The escalator could be a sculpture, a surrealist delirium, pure poetry, but it is absolutely functional. I discovered that the first patent application for escalators dates from the end of the 19th century. It was created for amusement parks in the United States. It is therefore not intended to be a functional object: it was first and foremost a fairground attraction. We offered people the opportunity to straddle an escalator railing that would take them to the top, like a merry-go-round. This object considered utilitarian therefore initially comes from entertainment. This is undoubtedly what gives it this aspect that is both spectacular and useful. It has the same status as the umbrella. A poetic, marvelous, surreal, and totally functional object.

White noise

I am a regular listener to a particular music called white noise. A sound formed from all frequencies that the human ear can hear. It sounds like a “pshhhhh”… It is used by acousticians for its technical specifications, for example for breaking in speakers. But it is a sound that also has the capacity to considerably rest our brain. While it is not aesthetically pleasing, nor particularly melodious, it is the most comfortable sound. It doesn't produce anything salient, on the contrary, and will put all other surrounding sounds in the background. It’s a sound that soothes. It produces the same effect, for example, as the sound of a waterfall. I downloaded some on my cell phone and I regularly do little shots of white noise.

Loris Gréaud

Loris Gréaud is a contemporary artist that I really like. He recently invaded the Petit Palais in Paris for an exhibition, “Les Nuits Corticales”, but almost without touching the monument. He somehow set the Petit Palais in vibration, with very few material elements. There were barely visible olfactory devices, placed against the walls, almost like air conditioning units, which allowed certain parts of our brain to be stimulated. You have to imagine yourself in a large empty space, forcing yourself to connect to stimuli other than the visual stimulus. In the garden of the Petit Palais, he proposed a sound journey: traveling 40 km across all points of the globe, but in an absolutely still manner, only by listening to a soundscape formed by soundtracks from explorers' journeys broadcast in the garden. We could also go in search of a blob, this organism of which we do not really know whether it is absolutely animal, plant or bacteriological. A way for Loris Gréaud to speak out and take by storm, if I may say so, this institution that is the Petit Palais, but in the most hidden way possible. And which leaves room for each visitor. No invitation was made to admire his talent or his intelligence, which nevertheless are there, but to offer the minimal support – but oh so effective and efficient – ​​in order to actively participate in the installation.