(Elodie Antoine, Chaises à bascule / Brian Dettmer, Cutting Gears)
What could be more mundane than a chair? Or more widespread than a book? As is shown by this particularly fascinating exhibition, these two everyday objects have nurtured the imaginations of numerous artists, who have subjected them to some weird and spectacular metamorphoses and hybridisations.
The chair becomes a one-legged object in the hands of the French artist Stéphane Plassier, proliferates in the work of Belgium’s Elodie Antoine, and is ready to take flight in the case of the Czech artist Krištof Kintera; it has encounters with a wheelbarrow, a tree, braces, and a radiator. For its part, the book is cut up and torn apart, has holes bored in it and is wonderfully carved, deconstructed and reconstructed, but it is also incorporated into sculptures and installations to highlight the importance of its role as a medium for the transmission of knowledge and ideas and as a sacred object – Torah, Bible, or Koran – in the three great monotheistic religions.
A BOOK BETWEEN TWO STOOLS > 7/9, Villa Empain, www.villaempain.com
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