Images of Tadashi Kawamata’s extraordinary installation entitled Chairs for Abu Dhabi has been circulating the blogosphere the last few days. A follow up of a similar project featured in France, the piece consists of hundreds of chairs – mostly vintage and recycled – stacked on top of one another like a giant hollow mountain of seats. Or a beehive.
Featured last November at Manarat Al Saadiyat, the tower of chairs was installed in five days and topped out at approximately 20 feet.
Unlike other structures of its kind, this one was designed to be used as a meeting spot for attendees of the capital’s fourth annual art fair.
“It’s kind of like a rotunda, a round tower about five metres in height,” Mr Kawamata told The National. People can take a seat while they are waiting for someone, he added.
Some of the chairs are made with wood, others are metal, and there are even a few couches on display.
All of the seats are connected to one another and several are safe to sit in, though that must have felt like a precarious place to take a break.
Still, it’s exciting to see art made of up-cycled materials in one of the world’s wealthiest cities. Apparently it created quite the buzz.
:: The National
Images by Reuters, Daniel Suarez via My Modern Met
Author: Tafline Laylin
As a tour leader who led “eco-friendly” camping trips throughout North America, Tafline soon realized that she was instead leaving behind a trail of gas fumes, plastic bottles and Pringles. In fact, wherever she traveled – whether it was Viet Nam or South Africa or England – it became clear how inefficiently the mandate to re-think our consumer culture is reaching the general public. Born in Iran, raised in South Africa and the United States, she currently splits her time between Africa and the Middle East. Tafline can be reached at tafline (at) greenprophet (dot) com.
