Supersize it !

A remnant of Gulliver and his extraordinary adventures in the fantasies of the young at heart, the natural propensity of certain designers to think big, or the desire to bring human beings to a greater acceptance of their true place in the universe by making them feel like ants… Contrasts of scale have informed much art and design in recent years, in the form of XXL creations. At the end of the 20th century, Le Dîner de Gulliver by visual artist Lilian Bourgeat, a reference to Swift’s famous novel, invited the spectator to a table that was wholly normal except for the fact that it was two and a half times larger than usual. Famous for his outsize, hyper-realistic sculptures of everyday objects (a public bench, a supermarket trolley and even wellington boots), the artist transforms his viewers into Lilliputians, tipping them over into a new dimension that elicits an emotional reaction.

Before him, other artists influenced by the legacy of Pop Art and the counter-culture contributed to the opening up of the traditional field of art, taking it out of the straitjacket of museums to offer stunned passers-by fairytale visions like something straight out of a world of giants.In the 1960s, Swedish Pop artist Claes Oldenburg shook up the everyday with his oversize sculptures: a giant spoon topped with a gargantuan cherry in Minneapolis, a monumental saw half-buried in a pathway in Tokyo, and an XXL ice-cream cone that seems to have fallen from the sky onto the roof of a shopping centre in Cologne. Passers-by may be entertained, but on a more profound level, the artist is calling into question their emotions and their very relationship with the world. In France, there was also the famous monumental flowerless, gold-leaf-covered pot by Jean-Pierre Raynaud, first commissioned by the jeweller Cartier for its contemporary art foundation and a long-time fixture on the piazza in front of the Centre Pompidou, delighting Parisians and visitors alike.

Other unforgettable works that lightheartedly play with scale and throw our senses into disarray are the hyperrealist silicon, polyester resin and oil-paint sculptures of Ron Mueck, resulting in characters that are all larger than life – except, sometimes, when it comes to size. But whether his creations are huge or tiny, the artist likes to disconcert his viewers and even change their perception of the world forever through his flawless characters.And the tireless Jeff Koons also went down in art history with his grandiose Puppy, installed in front of Bilbao’s Guggenheim Museum, or more recently with his giant Balloon Dog, modelled on those made by clowns and other kids’ entertainers. Keen to preserve the childhood memory of a son he no longer saw after his divorce from Cicciolina, the artist created a star piece that’s been displayed all round the world and purchased by some of the world’s great art collectors for dizzying sums.
Situated somewhere between fairytale and reality, XXL art provokes amazement and undoubtedly takes us back to a state of childhood in which the world – so huge – dominates us.Fascinating, fun and disconcerting all at once, contrasts of scale have also inspired many contemporary designers.

As early as 1970, Gaetano Pesce provoked surprise with his Moloch floor lamp – a giant version but also an exact replica of the iconic Luxo desk lamp. Only about 20 were actually produced, but the idea was reprised several years later by Philippe Starck with his SuperArchimoon floor lamp.
We’re also reminded of Ingo Maurer’s XXL Dome lampshade and his giant bulb that becomes a lamp in its own right, of the outsize match functioning as a bench, and of course of Elisabeth Hertzfeld’s XXL ring used as a mirror. Deflected from their primary function, these practical objects stimulate the imagination, bring a fun touch to interiors and interrogate us, inevitably, about the boundary between art and design.