I saw this work at the Cork Street Open Exhibition, which gives emerging and established artists worldwide a chance to show in central London, and this year raised money for Crisis, a charity for homeless people.
The exhibition has now ended but there's a link below.
We all know about chairs. Chairs are solace for sore feet: they make a public statement that this is a spot where we belong; they bring friends together; they consecrate space; they wait patiently in rows while we enjoy ourselves watching or listening. Look at this chair. It's angle is tempting, inviting us to lie back and
relax. The upholstery may be leather, which cools our skin in summer and
warms us in winter. But remember chairs also transport the very young and the very old, sometimes to places they'd rather not go.
It's a trap. The people who used this seat were passive, waiting for something to
be done to them which they probably could feel but not see. Was this a chair used not so long ago by dentists whose opening question was 'Gas' or 'Cocaine?'
'Is that comfortable?'
they also asked and the patient lied back 'Yes'. But comfort is neither here or there. The image carries the double message of the advertisements for chairs which infest old people's magazines and TV programmes: unfold us, enjoy us and wait patiently for death.
The artist writes 'What
I hope to find with my camera is the poetry of organic time - places and common
objects in transition, still resonant with memory but broken from their former
glory and given new meaning'.
No comments:
Post a Comment