Designers including Bethan Laura Wooden and Maarten Baas have contributed a vary of “occasionally jarring” chairs and lighting to an exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern-day Artwork.
Referred to as Discussion Pieces: Up to date Home furniture in Dialogue, the exposition at the San Francisco Museum of Contemporary Art (SFMOMA) capabilities 45 parts of furnishings and decor “that prioritise this means and substance decision over function and practicality”.
“The is effective on see are often jarring, frequently bold and usually discussion starters,” mentioned the museum.
Drawn entirely from the SFMOMA collection, some of the items have been preferred purely for their option appearance, these kinds of as an otherworldly leather-based and plastic armchair by South Korean designer Jay Sae Jung Oh.
Other pieces of home furnishings ended up picked for their commentary on social problems. For case in point, a piece by American architect Germane Barnes is a porch chair topped with an oversized backrest formed like a milled wooden comb.
Known as Uneasy Lies the Head that Wears the Crown, the piece was described by Barnes as a illustration of Black hair, meant to spotlight how Black hair “is generally policed and frowned on as a substitute of celebrated as it really should [be]”.
Dutch designer Baas and Italian architect Gaetano Pesce were being also incorporated in the exhibition.
Baas developed a shiny blue chair included with clay when Pesce contributed an organic-hunting cloth and resin chair identified as Seaweed, which resembles clumps of tangled algae.
A sequence of lighting designs accompanied the household furniture. British designer Bethan Laura Wood established a spindly glass and steel chandelier called Criss Cross Kite.
“A chandelier is typically a quite fancy-pantsy centre mild,” claimed Wooden, reflecting on her work.
“I definitely want to participate in with this notion of fantasy inside the point.”
American designer Katie Stout‘s ceramic lamp One of a kind Woman was also on display. The lighting piece is characterised by an abstract determine that the designer explained is meant as a commentary on domesticity and femininity.
All of the home furnishings in the exhibition was arranged across a deep purple carpet interspersed with amorphously formed plots of ground area to form a meandering pathway.
Publications by the exhibited designers as properly as texts that tell their get the job done have been positioned in piles on the floor following to their respective household furniture items.
“For the designers who did not still have a reserve on their practice, we wrapped a substantial e-book in black paper to signal [the idea of a] ‘missing book or scholarship,” stated SFMOMA curator Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher.
“We identified that most of the lacking textbooks were being for females designers,” she extra.
“Sparking dialogue in the course of the gallery, Conversation Items provides chairs and lamps that surprise and garner awareness unapologetically,” stated SFMOMA.
Last 12 months, the San Francisco museum showcased an exhibition of perform by architect Neri Oxman, when it just lately grew to become the very first museum to receive a module from the Japanese Nakagin Capsule Tower.
Dialogue Parts: Modern Home furnishings in Dialogue was on exhibit at the SFMOMA from 20 August 2022 to 25 June 2023. See Dezeen Gatherings Guide for an up-to-date listing of architecture and design situations taking position about the environment.
The visuals are courtesy of SFMOMA.
