At Domaine de Biar in southern France, Loïc Casanova’s 2021 exhibition placed angular raven sculptures among gardens, windows and a historic façade.

A bird reduced to a few sharp planes can change the reading of an entire setting. In Monsieur Le Corbeau, French artist Loïc Casanova brought sculptures and photographs to Domaine de Biar in Lavérune, near Montpellier. The exhibition ran from 23 September to 17 October 2021, pairing the estate’s established architectural character with the spare geometry of his Origami series.

The raven is recognisable through its silhouette: a projecting beak, a folded-looking body and narrow, pointed legs. Broad, flat faces replace feathers and rounded anatomy. Seen in the garden, the large white figure stands against foliage, while smaller birds around it introduce a second scale. The contrast makes the sculpture read both as an animal and as an arrangement of abstract surfaces.

At night, the relationship with the building becomes more pronounced. The white raven sits before an illuminated façade whose arches and surface detail form a dense backdrop to its simple outline. Its geometry remains legible even as the surrounding architecture gains depth through light and shadow.

A black raven photographed on a window ledge offers a quieter counterpart. Here, the window frames the object, and the nearby furniture gives its size a familiar reference. Moving between garden and interior, the same formal language takes on different spatial roles: a prominent figure outdoors and a compact interruption within an inhabited room.

Casanova describes Japanese minimalism, architecture and nature among his influences. The title Origami points to the sculptures’ folded appearance; the available documentation does not establish their material or fabrication method. Their interest lies in how a small vocabulary of edges and planes interacts with the textures, openings and scale of an existing place.

Sources: Loïc Casanova — exhibition; Origami series; Fubiz, 9 November 2021.