Louis Vuitton has called on artists and friends of Wallpaper* Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset to bring something smartly - and unsettlingly - playful to the first floor exhibition space of their New Bond Street Maison.
The exhibition of new works by Elmgreen & Dragset includes 'Omnes Una Manet Nox' (One Night Awaits us All), an oversized ornate bed with a golden vulture perched on one of the bed posts, ready to dive in, we suppose, if the occupant slips into the big sleep; a rocking horse for grown up riders; a wall safe wired with sticks of dynamite, apparently taken from Wile E Coyote's arsenal; and a nest containing a golden egg.
The London and Berlin-based Scandinavians have also come up with a reading list for the curated shelf at the Louis Vuitton Librairie. And during the exhibition, store employees, tucked up in the centrepiece bed, will be read bedtime stories by actors and writers.
A small-scale version of 'Powerless Structures Fig.101', the sculpture the artists produced for Trafalgar Square's Fourth Plinth - sponsored by Louis Vuitton and in place until next summer - has also been installed in the lobby of the store.
Louis Vuitton have an on-going relationship with the duo and they were involved in this summer's Louis Vuitton Young Arts Project Summer Academy, running workshops and taking part in outside trips. The young academicians took Elmgreen & Dragset's Fourth Plinth sculpture as the inspiration for four of their own pieces of public art, exhibited at different sites around London.
The Maison display runs concurrently with a show at the Victoria Miro gallery. 'Harvest' includes a series of what look like white paintings but is revealed to be sections of wall (actual and skilfully peeled off paint) from some of the world's best know white galleries, including New York's Guggenheim and London's Hayward.
Meanwhile, they have again come over all darkly fantastic on the upper floor, turning it into a barn complete with hay on the floor, rustic signifiers and another vulture. And, part of what feels like a national blitz, a newly commissioned work 'But I'm on the Guest List Too! 2012' is on show at the Liverpool Biennial 2012 until 25 November.
The duo's 'Grown Up Rocking Horse', part of their exhibition at Louis Vuitton's Bond Street Maison, is a rocking horse for grown-up riders
The London and Berlin-based Scandinavians have also come up with a reading list for the Louis Vuitton Librairie, picking titles by the likes of Angela Carter, Frank O'Hara, Samuel Beckett and Virginia Woolf to line the curated shelf
'The End is Always Nearer' features a wall safe wired with sticks of dynamite
The exhibition also includes 'Great Expectations', a nest containing a golden egg
A small-scale version of 'Powerless Structures Fig.101', the sculpture the artists produced for Trafalgar Square's Fourth Plinth - sponsored by Louis Vuitton and in place until next summer - has also been installed in the lobby of the store
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