Chairs, Chair Design and Chair Designers
When viewed from outside an Issey Miyake store in Tokyo, the blue chairs installed in the shop’s window by Japanese architect Yoichi Yamamoto appear to be just another collection of ordinary chairs, but in reality, they’re just wooden backs fixed to the floor – it’s the legs painted onto the ground that, from a fixed angle, appear in the correct perspective and make the chairs look whole. The installation is called 2D/3D Chairs.
Via dezeen.com
Chair installation by Ivan Puig
Going back again to an exhibition of Janez Suhadolc in 2006. The reason is my recent interest in Pinterest. There two photos of Robert Wilson’s Parzival Chair, Chair with a Shadow came up and I had immediately associations with that exhibition by Suhadolc.
The purpose of the setting is not to simply place Suhadolc’s chairs into a room and leave the Permanent collection authors’ paintings on the walls. The exhibition was set up by Suhadolc himself to reflect a special relationship between his own works and the works of other authors. He uses the so-called quotations by other authors. He places his works and drawings within a certain distance to the works of other authors in such a way that the visitor is forced to look at them differently than he is used to. (Namely, many a time the visitor embraces the whole image only superficially, with almost no interest in the details, the painting becomes more of an “equipment” which truncates whole experience.) This time it is different. The viewer is forced to look for details and structures, both of the paintings as well as Suhadolc’s exhibits. For us at the gallery, this kind of setting is thus even more unusual and very special since we are more or less used to setting up exhibits “as they are”. Namely, we prefer for each author and his work to be on a separate wall, and to have as little dialogue with other works as possible, except when the concept of an exhibition involves a connection of different authors.
So Suhadolc placed his chairs in a certain position vis a vis certain chair paintings. The way he did that according to the two photos here above give similar thoughts as the The Wilson Parzival Chair with a shadow. Wouldn’t you agree?
The Latter photo is from an auction (The Robert Wilson Loft Sale) at Philips de Pury in 2007 where it fetched $26,400
For me the Parzival is a chair installation in itself. But it took a detour to Slovenia to appreciate it.
BTW now Janez seems to have a blog with….one post
I realize I’m one day late, but I can’t help it, I only discovered it today and I don’t want to save it for next year. This Chair installation by the name Lock of Love is created by Rotterdam, The Netherlands, based artists Bliss. It is a public chair. It even has a standard to put your camera in front of it to capture you and your beloved, if you like. Ultimately it is the maker’s intention that you bring your own lock, put your name and the name of your beloved on it, click it to the chair and throw the key in the canal, referring to an Italian fairytale promising that as long as the lock remains there, your relation will last….poetic, isn’t it?
Discovered in the Dutch Newspaper NRC, on the blog of Reinier de Jong, a Dutch chair designer, and on Enter The Mothership which has more photos.
Update:
Ande here the photo/article of NRC, because you can clearly see the locks already added:
Paris based Florence Doléac has dressed a chair with a poetic felt wedding dress made entirely by hand. She was inspired by an old tradition in Kyrchyzstan: The mother gives her daughter at her wedding a carpet of felt. Each stitch represents a day of happiness for the new couple. Florence’s dress has an infinite number of points that intertwine like long hair. The title for this object is “La Chaise Mise en Nu”. I would translate it as “The Chair Exhibited in its Bare Existence (or Meaning)”.
Date: 2002
Materials: felt wool rope leash
Design: Doléac Florence – Paris, France
Slow Design: Limited edition of 30 copies, parts made locally, recycled materials (felt) and natural (wool), heat, poetry, softness, and praised the couple’s daily happiness.