Photograph by Andrew Jacobs.
Founded in 2017 by Aaron Aujla and Benjamin Bloomstein, Green River Project is a small-scale furniture producer emphasizing sustainably sourced materials. The style they have perfected might be called the New Brutalism, weighty yet elegant, and direct in expression. In the context of this exhibition, it is impossible to miss the connection between their work and that of the California free spirit J. B. Blunk. Blunk had a similarly intense relation to timber, and when making functional furniture, used simple, massive joints to compose his forms.
Echoes of traditional African seating can be glimpsed in both Blunk’s and Green River Project’s works, but Aujla and Bloomstein’s practice is utterly of the current moment. They have experimented with such unexpected materials as neon, tobacco leaves, and aluminum, and have collaborated with curators and other artists to extend their own vision. If Blunk was a somewhat reclusive figure, hidden in the forest, Green River Project is unquestionably urban and plugged in to a wide creative network—all the better to explore the productive possibilities of the twenty-first century.
Half Moon Club Chair in raffia, wood, and coffee. Designed and made by Green River Project, USA, 2019.
LC1428