Artful Chairs

Art and furniture design have been closely linked for a very long time (e.g. Rietveld’s ‘Mondrian’ chair, or Dali’s ‘Mae West’ installation featuring a sofa in the shape of lips). The permeability of the two cultures goes beyond referencing each other, and has become innate.

Here are a few examples of creative cross-contamination…

 

 Maarten Baas’ ‘Plain’ collection of painted clay furniture has skinny, uneven and wobbly limbs, much like the painted bronze sculptures of Giacometti.

Ron Arad’s ‘Spring’ collection has the bright colors, rounded shapes and cartoonishness of Keith Haring’s street to gallery art.

Much like Theo Jansen’s moving sculptures, Zanotta’s ‘Reale’ table seems like it might go strolling down the beach with only the wind in its structure. 

Comic book clouds are printed in small dots on the top of Nendo’s ‘Cloud’ table, which is reminiscent of the pop-art works of Roy Lichtenstein (in a quiet Japanese sort of way). 

You can somewhat recreate the reflective nymphea-like effect of Buren’s Grand Palais installation in your living room, thanks to Nendo’s ‘Pond’ tables which even include the artist’s famous stripe (although not at 8.7cm wide).

Made of hundreds of little rings stuck together to create the shell of a piece of furniture, the pieces of the ‘Engineering Temporality’ collection by Tuomas Markunpoika Tolvanen bare a strong resemblance with the works of Tara Donovan, who covers large walls with polystyrene cups, metal rings or cut straws to impactful, organic effect.

With functionality being the only separating factor, Duchamp and Castiglioni’s ready-mades directly correlate to each other. Castiglioni assembles three pieces to create a seat, while Duchamp adds a wheel to a seat to create art.

Moroso’s ‘Muebles Amorosos’ armchair looks like it’s evolved from Sol Lewitt’s primordial soup. 

By Claire Toussaint

Many Chairs Make Much Art

No longer content to be an integral part of an overall interior, chairs are reclaiming their sculptural qualities and bridging the gap between art and design. (All this to seemingly sell chairs to be in your interior)

A feast for the eyes and a great way to show off variations in style and color, shooting chairs out of context allows the potential client to look at them in a very different way. The focus is no longer on how well the chair complements the rest of the environment, but on the formal character of the chair itself. Accordingly, the buying process is cleverly altered to one similar to buying art (which is certainly not chosen on how well in goes with a sofa).

Italian manufacturer Pedrali turns 50 this year, and to celebrate they have developed an ad campaign showing the top view of dozens and dozens of chairs laid out in geometrical shapes like the candles on a birthday cake.

 Arper, another Italian manufacturer, uses photos of their products stacked, piled or bunched together on a neutral background like topless models in jeans. Definitely shows off the curves, although not necessarily the scale of the piece.

Nothing says ‘garage sale’ like piling up all your furniture in front of the house.  But somehow if you pile it up in a photo studio, or line it up perfectly in front of the factory, it suddenly says ‘list price’.

To hell with scale, chair art translates easily to doll size pieces! Instead of arranging them in a small open-faced dwelling, they can be hung by their feet in a spherical shape around a light bulb with interesting shadow effects...

 Finally, for the no-longer-parentally-guided crowd, a little straight-up chair-porn mise-en-scène and photographed by the inimitable Karl Lagerfeld. From light necking, to a little upside-down plaisir à deux, to a pile-up of countless chairs, the fashion master plays up the leather and fur side of each piece.

By Claire Toussaint