Swe deliver “The Art of the Object”, released on November 8, was printed in 2,500 copies. It was as a neighbor that Marielle Brie de Lagerac, art historian and resident of Saint-Sornin, came to present it to the readers of Trait d’union, the La Rochefoucauld bookstore, invited by Erick-Amaury Zion, Friday evening .
As she had done a few days earlier, at the Camondo school of interior architecture and design in Paris. And while his book caught the eye of Télérama who added it to its special Christmas gifts issue.
Answering the questions that no one asks about the objects that make up our daily lives or which we use more sparingly is the great ambition of Marielle Brie who first made a blog about it in 2016. “When I launched this blog, I said to myself that it would be great to one day make a book out of it. I didn’t think it would be possible then. It was a designer who put me in contact with the publisher. »
As scholarly as it is funny, the blog, and now the book, is at the crossroads of official archives (“I regularly go to the BNF”), anecdotes, period illustrations, all told in an ironic way. light. Everything except a heavy thesis but on the contrary laughing and amusing, like its author.
“We were wondering what happened to the ball touched by Maradona’s hand…”
From the 120 chronicles written over eight years, it was necessary to make a selection, prune, rewrite, synthesize. “I kept around thirty, which I had to shorten, and write around ten new ones. » To arrive at the number 50. Knowing that a column represents a month of work, between hunting for sources and writing.
Reading the summary gives the impression of being on the threshold of a wealthy house: vestibule, reception room, cabinet of curiosities, bathroom, orangery, etc.
Then we navigate, from room to room, to come across, in turn, a “door knocker” and a “candle holder in the shape of a deer”, a “scented apple” and a “floral clock”, and, following a another logic, an “engagement ring” and a “dildo” (!).
“Show what I could do”
Objects, Marielle Brie de Lagerac, 38 years old, has made them, year after year, over time, her area of expertise. “At the beginning, the blog was a showcase for art professionals that I wanted to approach by showing them what I knew how to do,” explains the person who provides content to gallery owners, museums, designers, media, etc. .
The native of Angoulême, who spent her childhood in Saint-Amant-de-Nouère, does not just write for her blog and for her various clients; it collaborates with other media, general and specialized. “Since 2019, I have had a regular column, “Le Glossaire”, in the Drouot gazette. »
In the same vein as the blog, a recent collaboration with the magazine Le Point was an opportunity to get on the trail of vanished fetish objects: “We wondered what became of Marie-Antoinette’s ballerina on the scaffold, Ravaillac’s knife and the ball touched by Maradona’s hand…”
His article on the revolver, “one of my favorites”, available in the book, earned him the opportunity to participate in a radio show on Samuel Colt on France Culture in 2020. While the gastronomic journalist Julie Andrieu had invited him in his notebooks to talk about the tastes of Empress Joséphine, wife of Napoleon, on France 5.
In Charente, Marielle Brie de Lagerac also demonstrates plural activity. She regularly acts as a guide to the cathedral treasure, gives classes at the Grand Angoulême art school and lectures at the Museum of Fine Arts on certain Thursdays.
The editorial team advises you
While a second visit is planned for December 19 at the Rupificaldienne bookstore, its Charente promotion will take it to the Aubeterre Christmas market on December 22, at the La Lisière bookstore.
“The Art of the Object”. Marielle Brie de Lagerac. Pyramyd Editions. 272 pages. €29.90.
