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What will
The Laughing
Cow ® W
TC9fIn
look like
90 years
from now?
In 2011, The Laughing
Cow ® celebrated its
90th anniversary,
which of course was
appropriately feted
by La Maison de
La vache qui rit ®
(The Laughing CCow
House). Working
with Lab’Bel, four schools of art, design
and graphics were given carte blanche
to reimagine the famous red cow
90 years from now. These spectacular,
moving and funny works were
displayed at La Maison de La vache qui
rit ® during the summer and at the Gaîté
Lyrique in Paris at the end of the year.
All the artwork showed the potential
for inspiration and eternal youth
contained in Bel’s founding brand.
Sharing smiles through art
Lab’Bel, the Bel Group’s artistic
laboratory, was established in
spring 2010 with the determined
goal of getting the Bel Group
involved in a general interest
policy of supporting
contemporary art, much in the way that
Léon Bel did when asked artist Benjamin
Rabier to create the famous
image of The Laughing
Cow ® . Managed by
Laurent Fiévet and
Silvia Guerra,
Lab’Bel engages
artists, and
movers and
shakers of the
contemporary art
world with humor,
eccentricity and
irreverence, the three
themes that form its
identity.
First projects outside France in 2011
In 2011, Lab’Bel continued its close
collaboration with La Maison de la vache
qui rit ® , providing the curators for the
“Même pas vielle !” (Not even old!)
exhibit. For the third time, it was also
active in the French city of Metz,
for a video work by Ignacio Uriarte.
In 2011, Lab’Bel also realized its first
projects outside France. Selected to
provide the curators for solo projects
at the contemporary art fair
in Barcelona, Spain, Lab’Bel organized
the Art for Life exhibit, which presented
works by laureates alongside works by
other international artists in residence.
Working with the Mies van der Rohe
Foundation, Lab’Bel also asked Stefan
Brüggermann decorate the German
pavilion in Barcelona, to kick off a series
of discussions on contemporary art
and architecture.
2012 agenda
In early 2012, Lab’Bel will
present the fi rst of its
collection at the 5 d’Angers
art gallery, as part of the
“Touching the Moon” exhibit
and will examine the cyclical and dynamic
representation of milk in contemporary
art over the summer as part of a new
collaboration with La Maison
de La vache qui rit ® .
In autumn 2012, Lab’Bel
will go to European culture
capital Guimaraes,
Portugal, to participate
in an exhibit of a series of
bridges between plastic
arts, music and literature.
A fourth exhibit in Metz
is also planned. With the same
drive for sharing its enthusiasm
for today’s artists and making their
work more accessible to the greatest
number of people, Lab’Bel’s art
collection will be displayed in the spring
at the fi ne arts museum in Dôle, France,
where Bel operates a production site.
It’s another way for the laboratory to
strengthen its ties to the Jura, Bel’s
historical birthplace.
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To follow news of the Bel
Group’s artistic laboratory,
go to www.lab-bel.fr
Bel Group 2011 • 37