A chair has taken over the country. The furniture – a common object present in everyone’s life, regardless of gender or class – has been on the front page of newspapers, the focus of political debates, and the subject of endless memes.

This is not the first time this accessory piece has taken the spotlight. Humans (particularly artists) have a great fascination for the object with legs, arms, and back.

From the simplicity of a beach lounger to the nobility of a throne, from a swivel office chair to the lethal punishment of the electric chair – the symbolism can represent rest, work, power, justice, and much more.

Beyond the literal sense, chairs can be used in design and visual arts as a means of expressing complex thoughts and emotions (apparently, also in politics).

“The chair is the most iconic object of design and has infinite variations; it’s a challenge that every designer will want to face at some point and create ‘their chair’, because it’s inexhaustible, whether in form, size, material, technology, thoughts, and messages,” design curator Livia Debanne told Brazil Journal. “We can tell the history of humanity through this object.”

The sculptural shape of a chair attracts artists and designers. Alongside Nessia Pope, Livia recently organized an exhibition at the Luisa Strina Gallery. A chair is a chair is a chair, which ended yesterday, showcased versions of the object created by 51 contemporary and modern artists.

“While industrial designers typically need to consider issues like mass production or ergonomics, artists can venture with spontaneity into materials and techniques, commenting on social, political, technological, and cultural dynamics,” said Livia.

In painting, a chair has been more than just a background or decorative object. The cultural themes of an era are reflected in paintings through chairs.

During the Renaissance, paintings featured detailed and realistic chairs, instrumental in the development of a new perspective on canvases. In the following centuries, chairs were prominent elements in domestic scenes, as seen in the famous works of the Dutch painter Vermeer.

In the 19th century, chairs took on a more emotional role, as in Van Gogh’s paintings. There were two iconic paintings that became his most important and innovative still lifes after the Sunflowers. The chairs represented those who were absent: Van Gogh and Gauguin during their time together in Arles.

In the first painting, Van Gogh’s Chair, now part of the National Gallery’s collection in London, the viewer sees a rustic yellow straw chair – the artist’s favorite color – with personal items on the seat: a pipe and a tobacco pouch, almost creating a self-portrait of the artist.

The second painting, Gauguin’s Chair, now in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, shows a much more comfortable chair than Van Gogh’s, suggesting a more sophisticated and complex person, also with objects on the seat, this time a lit candle and two books.

Van Gogh’s Chair was reimagined by David Hockney a century later. The English painter elevated the chair to a central element in his compositions, using it as a symbol of humor and the passage of time.

“Using chairs as a narrative instrument, from the invisible and the unsaid, is a way of telling stories through visual means,” said Hockney.

“Everything is autobiographical and everything is a portrait, even if it’s a chair,” agreed Lucien Freud.

A chair in art can be a self-portrait, but its violent use in politics paints a different picture: the decline of civility.


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