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Gehry's Instant Classics
| Article
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21931 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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| Issue
Date : |
6 / 1993 |
1,283 Words |
| Author
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Karen S. Chambers
Karen S. Chambers is a craft writer, critic, and curator
currently based in New York. |
Piled up in a corner are a bunch of bushel basket. It is not what you would expect to see in a museum, but then this is the American Craft Museum in New York. In the center of the gallery, on low, bright pumpkin-colored platforms, sits a progression of chairs nearly all a blond maple, a color close to that of the baskets. The chairs seem to be made of the baskets' wide ribbons of wood, although thickened up. The chairs evolve from unresolved sketches sometimes just loosely woven maple veneer strips, to elegantly rendered seating that beg to be sat in. The signs say Do Not Touch. The uniformed guard's voice reprimands the rebellious. There is one chair with an invitation to sit and you do. The laminated wood strip legs give pleasantly, and the slatted back embraces you, gently supporting and responding to your body's pressure.
You have just experienced the Hat Trick chair designed by Los Angeles-based architect Frank Gehry for the Knoll Group. Gehry's reputation rests on his Neo-Modern use of industrial materials: taped but unpainted Sheetrock for wall of think rooms, chain-link fence to "shadow" architectural features, and lathing left exposed instead of plastered.
Shift the scene to the International Contemporary Furniture Fair at Manhattan's blocks-long, black steel and smoked glass Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. If you make your way among the six thousand Square feet of booths housing 334 exhibitors--ignoring the bouncing stool on a steel spiral with its boxing-gloved arms, the over stuffed chairs in red brocade that look like they belong in a Fellini-inspired bordello, and the beautiful handcrafted wooden chests--and go to the Knoll Group booth, you will find the same bentwood chairs.
This time, people are sitting in them. In fact, the salespeople urge you to do so and are ready to supply a price list. Sit in the Power Play chair with its generous-sized "cushion" of laminated maple strips and its loop-stripped back that supports yours with a gracious give. The saleswoman tells you that this is from the just-introduced Gehry Collection. Its price? $1,437. The coffee table, a glass top supported by four half-circles of stripping, is also available, for $987. She explains that the names all come from hockey, Gehry's favorite game. Of course, the maple used for the collection is harvested under sustainable conditions from a Wisconsin forest. And the water-based finishes, from Lilley Industries, are ecologically friendly.
Frank Gehry's newest furniture has been displayed in both the rarefied atmosphere of the museum and the
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