Cyril Grizot, in the shadow of Lebovici
Cyril Grizot is a discreet One of those laborious antique dealers who work in the shade to reveal, promote and pass posterity a designer whom he has chosen to defend by passion. On his stand of the alley 5 to Paul Bert, among the Crazy luminous sculptures by Peter Keene, a pair of large armchairs signed by Gae Aulenti and an elegant Louis Sognot rattan lounge, a hint as discreet as its owner is placed on the row. A horny, dismembered, stained book, a monograph that served so much. That is not known by what miracle the pages still hold Yonel Lebovici, high-level sculptor by Michèle Chartier. Cyril who knows by heart could have written. It was him that he chose, Yonel Lebovici, for The work of a lifetime. Finally, that's what he says, modesty and discretion often going hand in hand. For looking at it more closely, would not it be rather the creator who designated it to represent it?
A FORTUITE MEETING In 1973 , the road of a very young Bordeaux antique dealer of 18 years installed at Jules Vallès crosses that of an engineer in aeronautics recently reconverted as designer. Regular visitor of the flea Market, where he find heteroclite objects for his Surrealist compositions. Lebovici, a lover of antiquities since he was 14 years old, has anxiously waited for his majority to start their business. Very soon, a relationship of trust is established between these two. While participating in the craze Of the time for Prouvé, Perriand, Mouille and Royère with his brother, Alan Grizot, a pioneer of gallery owners specialized in furniture from the 50's and his fellow painters, from Jousse to Laffanour. Cyril began buying his incredible sculptures to Lebovici and started to be passionate about this contemporary with the devastating humor.
LEBOVICI INTIMATE KNOWLEDGE Difficult to put Lebovici in a box, says Cyril Grizot. Designer? Sculptor ? Engineer? Lebovici is a playful and joyful change in design. He is keen to always magnify the triviality of the everyday life. All the most insignificant objects pass from the clothes peg to the electrical socket through the iron. In sympathetic disruptive, it mocks the coherence between the form and the function. With it, one lights up with a code, and his sense of humor reflected even in the names of his inventions, truculent puns of words. Like his masters, Tinguley, Calder, Léger or Takis, he declares the unbridled imagination to power
A LONG AND PATIENT WORK OF RECOGNITION In 2000, Cyril has a click. The work that his former neighbors to Paul Bert Serpette have undertaken for the furniture of architect of post-war, he will engage it for Yonel Lebovici, died three years ago. Immediately, he goes in search of his works dispersed among some collectors and redeems them to constitute a background. It works so much that it is impossible today that a work of Lebovici hasn't passed between his hands. To increase his striking force and carry out this promotional work, Cyril Grozot, who has remained at the Flea through passion and a taste for freedom, joins forces with a large Parisian gallery, the Galerie Chastel-Maréchal. Can present the work of Lebovici at the major international fairs, from the PAD to Basel and Miami. Lebovici's work must now be protected from the copy that threatens all the great names in design. Cyril Grizot therefore works on the establishment of an official Lebovici committee, but also on the creation of a catalog of his Creation which extends from 1969 to 1997. A sum that others can, in turn, corner, abuse, fatigue by dint of consultations.
Cyril Grizot, stands 216 & 218, alley 5, Paul Bert
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