Château lapin

Step into Zaric’s giant foosball, animated by a joyful team of rabbits (lapins). Welcome to a startling new kind of fable where you’ll lose all sense of scale in the midst of these humanimals, who seem frozen in place in the middle of the Haras (formerly Annecy’s stud farm). It’s like a very old game that, by a miracle, has made its way across time to us.

Wooden uprights chiseled by natural aging, polychrome-patinaed figurines … how many virtual centuries have left their mark on this game? A distant echo to the figurines Etruscans placed in their household altars, or animal mummies from ancient Egypt, Zaric’s soccer-playing rabbits have the staid dignity of lost gods. That’s typical of Zaric’s imaginary bestiary: peopled with odd creatures that are strangely anthropomorphic, silent, poetic, and above all, tender. Suspended in time, until the next game starts!

Nikola Zaric (1961–2017) was a Swiss sculptor who created an easily identified world focused on the connection between humans and animals. He produced a wide variety of works including engraved plasters, drawings, and sculptures, from miniature to gigantic. His marvelous bestiary has endured since it was first exhibited in the 1990s and continues to stop and create bonds with passersby. These works can been seen in France and Switzerland in gardens and squares, as well as on mountains. His works are part of numerous Swiss visual art collections.