When Chairs Become Extraordinary Sculptures

December 26, 2018 12:51 PM

When does a chair become something more than just a chair? When Attitudes Become Chairs features chairs of all descriptions by a diverse group of artists, architects, and designers. The exhibition complicates the artificial boundaries separating art, design, and craft. What category do you pick for a well-designed, finely constructed, artfully inspired chair? And does it really matter? While you’re not allowed to sit on any of the chairs in the exhibition, they are all chairs. Marrying form and function, they reveal how a decidedly utilitarian object can be transformed into something inspirational and new.

When Attitudes Become Chairs continues at the Pizzuti Collection (632 North Park Street, Columbus, Ohio) through January 20, 2019. The exhibition is curated by Marc Benda and Glenn Adamson.

posted by MovableBookLady (11 comments total)

i saw really a really nice slender white chair the other day. its tag read
"elethiomel chairs - with us, it's family"
posted by lalochezia at 1:49 PM on December 26, 2018 [5 favorites]

The plushie Papasan chairs look less comfortable than the author seems to think. To me, anyway.

Many years ago, I was wandering through an art exhibition at a university (University of South Carolina, I think) when I came across a chair with all sorts of spikes hammered through the seat from the underside, so that the pointy ends were facing up. It was called "Department Chair."
posted by thomas j wise at 2:23 PM on December 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

when it's a jar
posted by atoxyl at 2:48 PM on December 26, 2018 [4 favorites]

When does a chair become something more than just a chair?

When you buy it even though you never want to sit in it.

Because it’s hellaciously uncomfortable.
posted by leotrotsky at 3:29 PM on December 26, 2018 [2 favorites]

Many years ago, I was wandering through an art exhibition at a university (University of South Carolina, I think) when I came across a chair with all sorts of spikes hammered through the seat from the underside, so that the pointy ends were facing up. It was called "Department Chair."

Iron Throne: Academia Edition
posted by leotrotsky at 3:31 PM on December 26, 2018

i saw really a really nice slender white chair the other day. its tag read "elethiomel chairs - with us, it's family"

White is a little too stark a color for my taste; does it come in bone?
posted by leotrotsky at 3:33 PM on December 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

From A Global History of Sitting Down [Uri Friedman, The Atlantic 8/30/2016], the oldest known chair:

The first chair Rybczynski [author, Now I Sit Me Down] was able to identify in the historical record was not a physical chair but a sculpture of one from the Cycladic islands in the Aegean Sea, dated to the period 2,800 - 2,700 B.C. The figurine depicts a musician playing a harp while sitting in what looks like a typical kitchen chair, with a straight back and four legs.

By the time of the ancient Egyptians, sitting was a matter of status: Everyone sat on stools or on the ground, but chairs with backs or armrests were reserved for the elite.

Nothing old new here: this sounds like hierarchical chair assignments in today’s corporate offices.

WRT style:

In the fifth century B.C., the Greeks invented the klismos [WP], which featured curved legs and a curved backrest, and which Rybczynski described to me as “one of the most beautiful chairs made by anybody.” Ever. In his book, he argues that chairs “of equal elegance” to the klismos didn’t emerge for more than 2,000 years...

Here’s a modern recreation of the Klismos chair by T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings.
posted by cenoxo at 5:29 PM on December 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

Our three legged Ant Chair is not for sitting, it has some issues. OK to pile the Goddwill stuff on, but... Ant Chair.
posted by Windopaene at 9:00 PM on December 26, 2018

A fancy furniture shop let me sit in a really cool bright orange hanging SPHERE chair for a bit, not at all comfortable and at $3000 a smidge out of my budget... but I still really really want one. But custom built, somewhat larger, with the right cushions and just super strong chain and springs (needs to bounce just a little). Would make a strong (historical) post-modern statement.
posted by sammyo at 6:26 AM on December 27, 2018

"elethiomel chairs - with us, it's family"

I think I met this guy once when they were completing me and wondered what he'd got up to; thx.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 7:10 AM on December 27, 2018 [3 favorites]

Is a chair that is never sat on really a chair?
posted by bigZLiLk at 8:17 PM on December 27, 2018