Corpus, an exhibition in three tableaux, designed by Denis Rouquette for the Fête des Puces 2024 at the Paul Bert market

For the Puces 2024 festival, Laurence Vauclair accepted the invitation from the Paul Bert Serpette market to design an exhibition around the “Corpus”. But since Galerie Vauclair never does anything like the others, Laurence turns the corpus of flesh to the more subtle corpus of letters. In literature, a corpus is a set of texts chosen as a basis for study. This corpus is the Galerie Vauclair’s archives and research on the pieces it has been collecting for over thirty years. This corpus is also the collection that is growing in its repositories, like so many traces of a bygone era. The two bodies of work are obviously linked, for art objects are never more than traces of the body that imagined, modeled, commissioned, pampered and transmitted them. The Galerie Vauclair corpus is dazzling with a thousand hues in their 100m2 space, renowned as a place of marvels. Laurence and Denis travel back in time to the romanticized 19th century, from Marcel Proust’s first love to a fantasized, intellectualized Japan, to which collector Philippe Burty gave the name “Japonisme”. The furniture on display, although inspired by Far Eastern models, comes from French manufacturers who admire its craftsmanship. Because Japan was closed (sakoku) to the Western gaze during the Edo period, 19th-century artists and craftsmen worked in the Japanese style.

Galerie Vauclair exhibits at the Musée des Arts décoratifs for L’intime, de la chambre aux réseaux sociaux, from September 15, 2024 to March 30, 2025

In September 2024, this iconic rattan piece will once again be in the spotlight. On September 25, 2024, the big-screen release of the remake of Emmanuelle (1974), gives pride of place to this eponymous armchair that became famous a few centuries earlier. Director Audrey Diwan (winner of the Golden Lion at Venice for her film L’Évènement in 2021) takes on this great classic of erotic cinema, offering the lead role to Noémie Merlant (César for Best Supporting Actor in 2023 for the film L’Innocent).

To mark the occasion, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs (MAD) is also giving pride of place to the “Emmanuelle” armchair in an exhibition entitled De l’Intime de la chambre aux réseaux sociaux, from October 15, 2024. The piece presented at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs is on loan from Galerie Vauclair. This collaboration enables the latter to look back on 30 years of research, and in particular on the exhibition “Le rattin fait son cinéma” (2018), which featured this emblematic armchair.

The expertise of Laurence Vauclair, always accompanied by researchers from the field of art history, had brought to light the forgotten history of this piece, which evolved many times in its form but never in its material. Previously known as the Peacock armchair, because of its elaborate backrest reminiscent of a peacock wheel, it was always favored by women for the sensuality of its weave. However, this dexterity in rattan work testifies to a high provenance: that of the Pomare dynasty, a Polynesian family that became the royal family of Tahiti at the end of the 18th century. However, it wasn’t until the early 20th century, under the reign of Pomare V, that this armchair became known as the “Pomare” armchair.

Legend has it that His Royal Highness Prince “Hinoi” Teriihinoiatua Teraimateata Pomare (1869-1916) died on his throne, and that in his honor the chair was named, and still is, “Pomare” in Polynesia. As for its news for September 2024, Galerie Vauclair has been invited to design the showroom of Véronèse, a lighting designer, and to exhibit two models for Paris Design Week, which runs from September 5 to 14. From Thursday September 26 until autumn, Laurence and Denis Vauclair-Rouquette will also be presenting a retrospective of the “Emmanuelle” armchair at their gallery in the Paul Bert market at the Puces de Saint-Ouen.