GALLERISTS CAN'T PICK FURNITURE*
*FOR THE MOST PART. MENTIONED ARE CHAIRS AT FRIEZE ART FAIR BY: ARNE JACOBSEN; JOE COLOMBO; VICO MAGISTRETTI; ETTORE SOTTSASS – and, only one of these worked
Dear Snoops,
A relatively brief edition today, with a special report that sits on the periphery of our world: FRIEZE “ART” FAIR. (What is art? To Frieze: mainly paintings.) The report, we must admit, in fact includes no “art” but much furniture.
The question: can gallerists, so precisely analytical about art, be trusted to select a chair?
It should make us all feel better that: they can’t, really.
PREAMBLE 1: ART AS DÉCOR AS ART
First, let us make a pitch place décor in the same category as “art” (or vice versa) – and ask you to decide for yourselves whether this “elevates” décor, or destroys “art”. We shall do this via some hyper-simplified yet ultra-compelling-nonetheless theories on art from cultural mega-brains (OBELISK has kindly done the hard work here, and we add a couple):
ANSWERS TO “WHAT IS ART?”
OSCAR WILDE → art is a mode of individualism
FEDERICO FELLINI → art is autobiography
CONFUCIUS → art is self-cultivation
And some relevant words of wisdom: “Trying to force creativity is never good.” — SARAH McLACHLAN (ASIDE: The only thing that should be “forced”, according to FOR SCALE “EDIBLE STALKS” CORRESPONDENT Adriann R., is RHUBARB.)
From our P.O.V., the Venn of art/décor has a substantial, essential, EXISTENTIAL overlap. (Décor is a mode of individualism; décor is autobiography; décor is self-cultivation; forced décor is never good.)
PREAMBLE 2: ART IS SOMETHING WE “RESPOND TO” — DÉCOR IS SOMETHING WE “LIKE” or “NOT”
Here’s another quick preamble which is about HOW ART IS TREATED vs HOW DÉCOR IS TREATED (and we’re going to throw in a third cultural category: FILM and T.V.), and the difference is:
IN OTHER WORDS:
ART: we are used to explaining the “WHY” of why it is good, often incorporating our own personal responses to it, just as one might taste not-there flavors in wine we also read not-there ‘intent’ of the artist based on our P.O.V. Not so with…
DÉCOR: subject only to binary responses - good taste or bad taste. There is essentially NO décor criticism beyond “MEME”. And, so basically we’re like “I like this, but you don’t have to”, and yet refuse to analyze beyond this. Why our own experiences might determine why we do or don’t like something is RARELY discussed.
And, curve ball:
FILM and T.V.: are critically analyzed but are done so in the pop-mainstream sphere (versus the more [problematically] guarded art realm). But oddly, criticism-analysis in this sphere is often an attempt to CONVINCE US. “I liked, so YOU should like.” (Art, bizarrely, rarely asks you to agree with it. Décor never even tries to explain itself. It just describes itself.)
(This is not an ODE to art. Obviously, we still prefer the décorsphere. The more subconscious the thing is, the more it says about you. Art is too self-aware, and to aware of its market.)
MAIN AMBLE: FRIEZE AND ITS TABLES; ESTABLISHING “ART BASIC” AS A CATEGORY
Frieze Los Angeles takes place in a minor airport, Santa Monica Airport, in a large tent. Outside, it smells like fuel and the champagne is $39 a glass. Inside, major gallerists have reported such insights as: “vibrant energy”, “incredible energy”, “good energy”, “vibrant atmosphere”, (SUCH INDEPENDENT MINDS!), as well as “Leonardo DiCaprio”, “Tobey Maguire”.
Frieze is thus, it operates in two modes:
Within the tentscape of Business and Schmoozery, “art” is marketed and sold. Art is sometimes also discussed and that is done in terms of composition, material, scale, etc. Again, MAJOR DÉCOR OVERLAP.
So, one should assume that by and large these galleries, who are responsible for the décor of their booths, would select furniture that is also considered for its composition, material, scale, etc.
Would that not prove to us that they (gallerists) did, in fact, CARE about composition, material, scale, etc. across the board? Not just when they are making a commission?
And YES, some did.
And YES, some did not:
THE DID-NOTs:
L: Even Joe Colombo’s UNIVERSALE chairs can’t compensate for how absurd it is to smash chairs up against a bitty coffee table.
R: Even Arne Jacobsen’s ANT chairs can’t distract from actual trash and a printed tissue box from T*rget (or the like).
BOTH circumstances (SH*T SCALE; and, SH*T ON TABLE) were EXTREMELY common to the point of “STANDARD PRACTICE”.
And, there was also another ringing consensus amongst these gallerists: MIDCENT*RY MODERN and 20TH CENTURY ITALIAN PLASTIC were considered “NEUTRAL” — or, in this context, you might also legitimately refer to as “ART BASIC”.
Truly we have about 60K images like this:
Many, many Vico Magistretti chairs+tables (you see two examples side-by-side, one in black and one in what the gallerists probably call “MERLOT”) – which, given the context, saddens us because we are/were fans.
Here is what gallerists appeared to have googled:
“ITALIAN + PLASTIC + FAMOUS MALE DESIGNER”
OR
“MID-CENTURY + ROUND + OAK OR TEAK PREFERABLY”
MAJOR QUESTION: These are INTERNATIONAL GALLERIES and they have never heard of… anyone that isn’t at Des*gn With*n Reach? While we do not expect them to make a big display of ‘décor’, a reminder, they are purporting to care a F*CK LOAD about individuality in origin, their own specific and rarified tastes, and etc.
ONWARD !! TO THE GOOD (OR, AT LEAST “BETTER”)
Ok, we have the “Frieze Special Scale F*ckery” here, but FOCUS ON THE CHAIR, which we have found in isolation:
Los Angeles gallery “NONAKA-HILL” (2 locations in town) displays a chair of actual consideration, the product of JIRO NAGASE (whom the gallery represents because recall ART IS DÉCOR IS ART etc* AND WE ABSOLUTELY DO NOT MEAN “COLLECTIBLE DESIGN” - ick).
Highly “INDUSTRIAL”, even a bit skeletal. Is Nonaka-Hill asking us to look behind the mask of FRIEZE? The flesh of “art” as (purely) creative pursuit has dissolved away at Frieze into (primarily) financial transaction (the bedrock of ‘industry’).
The Nagase chair is stripped bare, it gives the sense of “machine”, it has a relaxed angle but ultimately is only comfortable for a short while. That chair *IS* Frieze.
And so, of Nonaka-Hill, the FOR SCALE opinion is “Oh, they get it.” They are not pretending, they simply are.
DÉCOR TAKEAWAY:
The real Nonaka-Hill lesson is, when making décor choices you must consider:
oneself, i.e. is there an option that speaks less to a basic Google search, and more to some kind of personal connection or expression? Because, in the pursuit of “good” (as gallerists show us) one might land in the world of “Ok, this again?”
N.B. We are not suggesting everyone try to outdo each other with some wacky thing, à la FOR SCALE nightmares Josh and Matt.
the “why’ of why something is good. Too often in décor we simply ask “does this look good or not”, rather than questioning “what are we saying?” We assert: FURNITURE IS COMMUNICATION. “Why” it is good is usually because it communicates something AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL. (Thank you Fellini.)
And you know, we were also very happy to see 1990s post-modern SOTTSASS (and his MANDARIN chair), a decidedly self-aware chair that says “BUSINESS”, “BIG CITY”, “SENSUALITY”, possibly even “SEVERE BUT DOES COCAINE”:
Well, honestly, we’ll wrap now. This was just to say: we went to absorb art and instead were distracted by the Predictability of Chair.
The main thoughts today are simply:
Don’t feel bad about any struggles in discovering Individual Taste. Even those who “know” the power of “ART”-décor can’t seem to step outside themselves to make an independent decision about chairs.
The FOR SCALE takeaway from the art realm is: we have a desire for us all to interrogate chairs with the same questioning prowess art people interrogate art with: i.e. “What does this f*cking mean?” (i.e. chair choices are more than like/dislike, they communicate)
Until next time. Love and good luck,
Oh I want a whole edition on what constitutes Art Basic
<3