Lionel Estève + Agricola Due Leoni
Agricola Due Leoni is pleased to present a new edition, coming this winter season, in collaboration with artist Lionel Estève.
Lionel Estève (b. Lyon, 1967) lives and works in Brussels and Provence. His concept for Agricola Due Leoni plays on themes that abound in his work – fragility, the divine nature of nature, botanical illustration as conceptual art, and a happy insouciance toward narrow definitions of art, illustration, sculpture, agriculture, and activism. Rather than image the olive branch, perhaps the most obvious plant to associate with its illustrious oleous byproduct, Lionel has veered to picture the clover, a much more humble and widespread plant, save the four-leafed one of myth and lore. This lucky talisman is pictured just a few times in the gracious garden of greens that Estève has us admire. And yet, even one is enough to bless the product, to bless the process, to sanction the friendship and generosity of exchange that goes into the production of such an object, a limited edition small batch, organically farmed, hand-harvested, cold-pressed olive oil that is the fruit of patient labor, stubborn resistance – and luck – just a little bit like the artistic process itself.
The works of Lionel Estève have been exhibited at the Musée Picasso (2024); Musée Grand-Hornu, Belgium (2023); Magasin Général, Rivière Madeleine, Canada (2022); Manufacture de Sèvres, France (2017); La Comète, Liège, Belgium (2016); La Verrière / Hermès, Brussels, Belgium (2011) and many others. His works are part of the collections of several institutions, including the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; the FRAC Bretagne, Rennes; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Musée d'Ixelles, Brussels.