LE BON MARCHÉ

Le La Serpent :

A work in white

For its 10

th

annual artist collaboration , Le Bon Marché

Rive Gauche welcomed Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto

and his monumental creation , Le La Serpent . Launched

ten   years ago to honor the store ’ s 19th - century

founders , Aristide and Marguerite Boucicaut , and

their   Mois du Blanc ( " white month " ) initiative , the exhi -

bition series invites artists to create unprecedented

works for the premises – with one condition : they

must incorporate the color white .

Renowned for his biomorphic structures , Ernesto

Neto ’ s work revisited the founding myth of Eve and

Adam , a cornerstone of Western culture . He magni -

fied the role of the serpent , arrayed in white . Crafted

entirely in his Rio de Janeiro workshop , Neto ’ s work

moved away from the traditional symbolism of original

sin which casts the serpent as malevolent Instead

the creature emerges as a feminine maternal figure

Le La Serpent becomes an allegory of life one that

dissolves the distinction between nature and culture

human and animal Across the store Ernesto Neto s

monumental crochet installations invited visitors to

experience a deeply sensory multicultural landscape

2025

in pictures