Fruit défendu I, 1999
Étienne Jacobée  

Sculpture : steel, sand · 181 x 63 x 53 cm 71.3 x 24.8 x 20.9 inch

€35,000 35 000 €

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Shipped from: France

Delivery to: France , € 640

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Verified Reviews : 9.6/10
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About the artwork

Type

Sculpture : Unique artwork

Condition

Artwork sold in perfect condition

Authenticity

Sold with certificate of Authenticity from the artist

Invoice from the gallery

Signature

Founder's stamp

Technique & Support

steel, sand

Dimensions ( cminch )

181 x 63 x 53 cm 71.3 x 24.8 x 20.9 inch Height x Width x Depth

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Credentials

Vetted seller since 2017 • Top Seller

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Description

Forbidden Fruit rises as an archaic and ambiguous form, at once protective and threatening. The sculpture evokes a minimal architecture, close to a hut or a primitive shelter, but also an organic, almost animal presence. Its long, slender legs, slightly off balance, may recall the strangeness of a spider, an ancestral figure of vigilance, entrapment, and silent tension.

Made of steel and black and green earth, the work carries a telluric materiality. The oxidized surface, marked by time and the elements, inscribes the sculpture within a long temporality, close to a process of accretion and hardening: a skin toughened and scarred, as if the material had passed through fire, air, and earth. Nothing is smooth; everything appears tested and weathered.

Steel, black and green earth

In Étienne Jacobée's work, rootedness is essential. Forbidden Fruit anchors itself in the ground while striving upward. The verticality is deliberately fragile, slightly unstable, as if the form were hesitating between growth and collapse. This tension between stability and imbalance gives the sculpture an almost ritual presence.

At the crossroads of distant references, primitive huts, megaliths, sacred architectures, and a more instinctive imagination, Forbidden Fruit seems to emerge from an inner landscape, nourished by the memory of forests, forgotten structures, and primordial forms. The work does not narrate; it keeps watch. It stands there, silent, like a vestige of an ancient world still inhabited.

Minimalism

Monumental

Totem

brown

France  • 1964

Presentation

Lives and works in Chantilly.
He devoted himself entirely to sculpture in the early 1990s and was quickly noticed by the art world. Having had access since childhood to the worlds of metal and wood through his two grandfathers, Etienne Jacobée chose steel as his primary material. Familiar and expressive, he explores its full potential with freedom — moving from solid to void, from vertical constructions to horizontal stretches, from pure form to improbable assemblages, from smooth to textured surfaces, from strict geometric cuts to stylized welded segments.

In a constant state of exploration, the artist refuses to be confined to a single style — he also works with plaster and wood — yet acknowledges certain artistic lineages: Henri Laurens, Eduardo Chillida, Dominique Labauvie. In a language that remains stripped-down yet diverse, his work can evoke tribal art, the human body, or a poetic resonance. Jacobée’s sculptures invite touch — they are alive. He sometimes coats them with earth, allowing lichens to develop naturally and create unique surface textures. More recently, color has taken on a significant role through the use of paint and pigment.

Since 2019, musicians, composers, filmmakers, art critics, writers, and dancers have been invited into his studio among the sculptures to expand the experience of dialogue and reflection.

His work was featured in ’s 2015 special issue on contemporary sculpture, which also devoted a portrait to him in 2016. Several insightful articles by Emmanuel Daydé have also appeared in in 2016, 2018, and 2021.

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