The eloquence of the chair

Artists have employed the chair to narrate stories of power, politics, as well as depict social and emotional undercurrents.

Some of the recent exhibitions held in the city featured artworks that used chair/s as a motif in paintings or as part of installations and served as a reminder to revisit this oft-seen ‘object’ and look at its multiple connotations along with its symbolic and metaphorical usage. Artists have employed the chair in various ways as a central motif in their art, to narrate stories of power, politics, social standing and emotional undercurrents.

While an empty chair can signify the presence or absence of a person, its design or make can allude to a certain time period, craftsmanship and functionality. Additionally, cues regarding its simplicity, material or its ornateness, the number of chairs, or the presence of props, and then their placement, all of these can offer clues to the narrative. Artworks have also varied from small format bronze sculptures to found chairs used to create assemblages and immersive installations.

To cite a few prominent instances, in 1888, ‘Gauguin’s Chair’, a painting by Van Gogh, is, in a sense, a representation of his artist friend Paul Gauguin. This particular chair appears to be plush with arms, with candles and books placed atop, and the lighting alludes to late evening or night. In comparison, his own chair, a widely known painting, which he painted as an accompaniment to this work around the same time or thereabouts, was simple, stripped of any ostentatiousness and amply depicts the contrast between the two artists’ personalities.

‘Accumulation No.1’, the first in a series of sculptures by artist Yayoi Kusuma, displayed a covered wooden chair with varying sizes of hand-sewn protruding phallic forms, which shocked audiences in New York when it was exhibited initially. Andy Warhol’s ‘Electric Chair’, a series of silkscreen prints on canvas depicted an empty electric chair, a chilling metaphor for death and violence. In 2007, Ai Weiwei, an artist and activist known for his political and socially provocative art created an installation ‘Fairytale’, at Documenta XII with 1001 antique Ming and Qing dynasty chairs, which he imported from China. He also invited 1001 Chinese citizens to visit the exhibition in Kassel and to experience this ‘fabricated’ microcosmic fairytale world for a short duration.

A few years ago, one remembers seeing artist Mansoor Ali’s ‘Dance of Democracy’ (2008), a satirical installation made with a pile of discarded chairs perched precariously, in New Delhi.

Closer home, the late Yusuf Arakkal, who lived in Bengaluru, often used the chair as a central motif in his paintings and sculptures. For him, it was a means to convey the human condition, as well as societal disparities and issues through empty chairs and chairs that appeared to be poised delicately. Earlier this year, artist C S Krishna Setty exhibited a large boat piled up with old dilapidated chairs balanced improbably, a critique on contemporary politics. Recently, Ganesh Dhareshwar exhibited two works around chairs at his solo show which concluded last week, wherein one of the installations, a single chair akin to a throne placed on a raised platform, with its surface marred by sharp nails, pointed to ironies associated with the pursuit of material benefits.

From paintings to sculptures and installations, chairs have eloquently engaged audiences, to narrate personal stories and collective histories and have been deployed as tools for social and political critique.

The author is a Bengaluru-based art consultant, curator and writer. She blogs at Art Scene India and can be reached on [e-mail]

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