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October 19, 2006

Take A Look At These Chairs

Recently having demonstrated his appreciation for record companies, tonight David Byrne unveils the fruit of his love for benches and back support. From his website:

I've been obsessed with chairs for a long long time. The cover of the mid-80s Talking Heads LP featured 4 photos of a drunken chair, showing off. A few years ago I began sketching them in books I carried with me. Maybe they are portraits, maybe self-portraits, maybe portraits of my interior state. Maybe they are also possible practical furniture design. Maybe all of the above at once.

...

What makes these different from most contemporary furniture is not the design -- furniture designers can be just as fanciful -- it is the absence of the "problem solving for the client" approach. Usually in commercial design one is given a budget and a material, price constraints and turnaround times. While I had financial constraints, the material constraints were absent -- I worked with whatever material seemed right to realize the drawing, which would not be practical if one were making a commercial run of even the wildest furniture.

...

Why chairs? Well, they have arms and legs and vaguely human scale -- and shape. They're people -- they hold you, support you, elevate you or humble you. They're funny or elegant, funky or gorgeous, social or aloof. They're characters with lives and histories...aren't they?

We're just gonna go ahead and assume he's not looking for an answer to that. Well, without further ado, here are Mr. Byrne's new "friends," named "Wedge," "Split Bamboo Mohawk," and "Log," respectively.

  

Long time (non-chair) friends say they saw this coming; after the release of his book Arboretum, this was the logical step in his blossoming tree fetish. And if you're into it, hit the collection's unveiling!

Furnishing the Self — Upholstering the Soul
Pace/MacGill Gallery
32 E 57th St. New York NY
19 October – 25 November 2006
We hear it's standing room only (har har). No, but just be careful where you sit; that "Wedge" character looks like he could be uncomfortable if greeted the, uh, wrong way.

Posted at 12:02 PM
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6 Comments

these chairs look more exciting than his last couple albums were.

Posted by: balumpus at 10/19/06 12:10 PM | Reply
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A log isn't a chair, it's a log. Just because you can sit on it doesn't mean it's a chair. If I was famous and set a cinderblock on the ground and called it a chair I would be called artistic rather than doing it as a non celebrity and being called dumb.

Posted by: Buckeye at 10/19/06 12:51 PM | Reply
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Hey! Give the man a break, he was in that band you know.

Posted by: dan s at 10/19/06 1:18 PM | Reply
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If david byrne endorses a chair, all the indie-chair snobs will say that the chair is no longer cool, and they'll rant about the inferiority of said chair here on stereogum, or something like that

Posted by: stereogum at 10/19/06 1:25 PM | Reply
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I have no idea why that said stereogum

Posted by: ian at 10/19/06 1:26 PM | Reply
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Hey balumpus,

David's last couple of albums were awesome.

Just saying.

Posted by: Dirty Lenin at 10/19/06 2:20 PM | Reply
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