“There are flowers everywhere for those who want to see them.” Matisse’s famous statement aptly describes the vivid and brightly colored transformation that multi-disciplinary artist Alexandre Benjamin Navet and Van Cleef & Arpels have achieved in the Landmark. The installation, Spring is Blooming in Hong Kong (through April 28), immerses viewers in Navet’s vibrant sketchbook. There are imaginative flowers and decorative objects to look at, but they are more than just delights for the eyes; they are functional too. You can sit on a Navet bench and drink your coffee or have a chat. The immersion doesn’t stop there. On six special days during lunchtime, you can receive from one of Navet’s flower carts a fresh tulip, wrapped in paper bearing one of his designs. (One attendant estimated that her cart distributed nearly1,000 flowers in a day.) The immersion continues in the Frivole™ Flowers jewelry collection.
The 30-something artist is a graduate of France’s ENSCi Les Ateliers (the French National Institute for Advanced Studies in Industrial Design). He also is the winner of the 2017 Van Cleef & Arpels’ Grand Prix Design Parade Toulon (for his room Imajaghan, piece à vivre). He has said that his work “involves creating sets and scenographies.” His public installations include projects at the Courtyard of the Palais Bourbon at the French National Assembly in 2023 (five decorative object totems) and at Le Place Du Commerce in 2022 (colorful building facades based on his research and his own aesthetic). Together with VCA, in May 2022, he also transformed 12 blocks of Fifth Avenue in New York City. Navet commented in 2023, “[i]t’s about creating surprises and trying to radically transform the quotidian into something different. …The element of surprise evokes something joyous in us.”
From his published interviews, it is clear that serious research goes into his joyous creations. VCA has provided interested viewers with additional details and a video interview in which Navet describes the creative process for the Landmark installation and the collection, including drawing and making the cutouts. He notes, “[t]here is really something about colored paper and the chromatic power of solid colors.” Indeed, there is!
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