Remarkable Chairs
Explore chairs by artists in OBJECTS: USA 2020. These functional furniture pieces showcase expert craftsmanship and refined taste as these designers rethink the long-established look and purpose of this everyday household object.
Rocking chair, 1976, California walnut
Sam Maloof’s work is just as satisfying in its tactility as it is visually. His pieces are unadorned and honest in appearance, yet boast a symphony of curvature. As a self-taught artisan, Maloof launched a successful career that led his signature rocking chair to be the first contemporary furniture object part of the White House collection in 1982.
Gingham Joy Bench, 2020, wood, sawdust, paper, paint, and polyurethane
Originally from rural Illinois and now based in New York City, Thomas Barger creates objects that fuse these two places and their contrasting cultures. His iconography alludes to the farmyard, applying motifs of tractor tires, laundry baskets, and sticks of butter. Barger constructs his work using painted paper pulp built over armatures, which results in chic minimalistic forms that convey the sophistication and creative energy of the New York design scene.
Listening Chair, 2019, urethane, polyurethane foam, and dyes
Luam Melake lives and works in New York City. Her practice ranges from handwoven sculptures to functional furniture objects, referencing the histories and methodologies of art, architecture, and industrial manufacturing. Through pieces like Listening Chair, Melake encourages viewers to consider their physical relationship to space and the potential for objects to facilitate meaningful social experiences. This is further realized through the material of the work as it appears to be hard and cold, but is actually soft and inviting.
Conoid Bench, 1966, American black walnut slab, hickory spindles and an East Indian rosewood butterfly key
One of the most renowned American studio furniture makers, the prolific and articulate George Nakashima was a leading innovator in twentieth-century furniture design. Trained as an architect, Nakashima acquired his cabinetmaking skills during the Second World War while interned in a forced relocation camp, working alongside the Japanese-trained Gentaro “Kenneth” Hikogawa. Through his decades-long career, Nakashima proved to be a singular figure merging organicism and structural rigor to create one-of-a-kind furniture pieces.
Double Cylinder Rocker, 2017, Baltic birch plywood and black stain
Founder of Waka Waka Studio in Los Angeles, Shin Okuda's background in art fabrication allows him to transfuse design rigor into functional wood pieces, without loosing their inherent charm. The results are geometric and sophisticated chairs that are calibrated to contemporary tastes. Okuda also balances one-off commissions with serialized production and collaborations with other makers. This flexibility realizes the ideal freedom of the designer-craftsman that was once at the heart of the studio movement.
Half Moon Club Chair, 2019, raffia, wood, and coffee
Founded in 2017 by Aaron Aujla and Benjamin Bloomstein, Green River Project LLC is a small-scale furniture producer emphasizing sustainably sourced materials. Aujla and Bloomstein utilize their background as visual artists to perfect a style that is weighty yet elegant, and direct in expression. The two pair untraditional elements such as neon, tobacco leaves, and aluminum with timber to make functional furniture that is tasteful and well defined.