This is not a chair.
On view through April 21, 2024
Claremont Lewis Museum of Art
Claremont, California
clmoa.org
The Claremont Lewis Museum of Art exhibition “This is not a chair.” presents a broad range of artists and approaches to the icon of human creative production that is the chair.
Drawing inspiration from Rene Magritte’s painting “The Treachery of Image,” which placed the statement “Ceci n’est pas une pipe.” (This is not a pipe.) under a painted representation of a pipe, “This is not a chair.” similarly explores the gray area between object and concept, language and meaning. This liminal space has provided fertile ground for artists to explore and challenge the framework for concept development. Through their experimentations, language’s illusion of stability starts to look like a two-legged stool.
The exhibition begs the question: What is a chair?
[Image: John Niero of Just Not Normal, J-low Chaise and Table/Ottoman, 2007. iberglass prototype. Photo credit: Charles Impstepf]
