Squashed Vipps by Ron Arad
Manufactured by Vipp, Denmark, altered by Ron Arad: a stool with style.
Chairs, Chair Design and Chair Designers
Born in Tel Aviv in 1951, educated at the Jerusalem Academy of Art and later at the Architectural Association in London, Ron Arad co-founded with Caroline Thorman the design and production studio One Off in 1981 and later, in 1989, Ron Arad Associates architecture and design practice. In 2008 Ron Arad Architects was established alongside Ron Arad Associates.
From 1994 to 1999 he established the Ron Arad Studio, design and production unit in Como, Italy. He was Professor of Design Product at the Royal College of Art in London up until 2009. he was awarded the 2011 London Design Week Medal for design excellence and was became a Royal Academician of the Royal Academy of Arts in 2013.
His constant experimentation with the possibilities of materials such as steel, aluminum or polyamide and his radical re-conception of the form and structure of furniture has put him at the forefront of contemporary design and architecture.
Alongside his limited edition studio work, Arad designs for many leading international companies including Kartell, Vitra, Moroso, Fiam, Driade, Alessi, Cappellini, Cassina, WMF and Magis among many others.
Ron Arad has designed a number of Public Art pieces, most recently the Vortext in Seoul, Korea, and the Kesher Sculpture at Tel Aviv University.
Source: Biography
Why design a chair when so many already exist? One of these chairs asks as much with its mysterious inscription “Why bark if you can have a dog?” This pair is a monument to the readymade: two unassuming chairs enrobed in gleaming, mirror-polished steel, thus transformed into something massive and powerful. But the second chair, inscribed “Why have a dog if you can bark yourself?” suggests a further thought: Who really needs new chairs after all?
Source MoMa
With the post: Chair Candy 1: Ron Arad at the Centre Pompidou in Paris I meant to start a small series of posts of Ron Arad’s solo exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, an exhibition that later was featured in Moma It stayed a very small series.
Recently I refound the photo’s I took there as I was reorganizing my photo’s and intended to go on with the series under Ron’s own lemma Chair Candy. For some time I’ve used Chair Candy as a nickname for chairs designed by Ron Arad. First it was a category. Later I reorganized the blog and made from many categories tags…there was a Chair Candy tag even….more rationalization did me get rid of the Chair Candy tag.
Didn’t notice this chair before I saw it being sold at Sotheby’s New York | 06 March 2013.
Peculiar, a Rietveld interpretation by Ron Arad.
266
PROPERTY OF A LADY
Ron Arad
“RIETVELD” CHAIR
Estimate: 80,000 – 120,000 USD
LOT SOLD. 194,500 USD (Hammer Price with Buyer’s Premium)
designed 1990-1992
produced circa 1996
number 6 from an edition of 20 and 5 artist’s proofs
incised Ron Arad 6/20
patinated steel
28 1/4 x 56 1/2 x 18 1/4 in. (71.8 x 143.5 x 46.5 cm)
produced by Ron Arad Studio, Italy
via Sotheby’s