Martino Gamper 100 Chair Analysis

Martino Gamper - 100 Chairs in 100 Days (2006)

Throughout Art and Design history, specifically Postmodernism, artists have recontextualised previous styles and forms in their works in order to ‘modernise’ . The common household chair has been an iconic symbol for both history and artistic rebellion in art and design. From the Dada movement, where the ordinary item was stripped of its practical use in the interest of becoming a ‘found object’, to the Bauhaus movement where the chair became a representative vessel for the radical leap towards combining the aesthetic with the practical in Twentieth Century design. Martino Gamper touches on these previous acts of artistic rebellion whilst honing in on the Postmodern take on recontextualisation

- namely appropriation - to create a new, contemporary style in 100 Chairs in 100 Days (2006). The work explores the role Design can hold in the artworld in eradicating the line between what is aesthetic and what is functional. It is through these hybrid designs that he brings to light a ‘remix culture’ - merging fine art and design, functional and aesthetic, purpose and style.

The creation of the series is restricted to one hundred chairs created from a variety of found objects within the limit of one hundred days. This systematic approach also brings to light the importance of process in artmaking. His Musical Chair (2006) from 15th May takes on the notion of changing an everyday objects use to grant it new meaning. The guitar no longer holds its traditional use, rather it takes on another, becoming necessary to the function of the chair. The chair becomes a key vessel to explore both the historical and modern use of the object and display this ‘remix culture’ - “what can they tell us about their place of origin or their previous sociological context and even their previous owners?” (Gamper 2007). By recontextualising the chair, Gamper creates an assemblage that merges not only a variety of found objects - whose purpose has now become unnecessary - but the contemporary work also acknowledges the poignant role of the chair as a representational object in the history of art and design. It is through these hybrid designs that Gamper creates works that make indistinguishable the difference between the functional and the aesthetic. Like his creative practice as a whole, he

questions the distinction between art and design.

Yasumasa Morimura - Daughter of Art History (2003)
Yasumasa Morimura’s uses collage to recontextualise famous Modernist works to create an amalgamation of identities, cultures and movements in his series Daughter of Art History (2003). In collaging these self portraits by other artists, Morimura creates an image of himself which explores “past and present, painting and photography, high art and parody.” (Papadopoulou 2009)

Ai Weiwei - Coca-Cola Vase (2007)
Traditional vases are covered with bright paint in Ai Weiwei’s Coca-Cola Vase (2007) in order to modernise and, in turn, completely eradicate the cultural significance of these Ancient pieces of ceramics. Rather than remastering past Art and Design styles, Ai presents an appropriation of ancient cultural icon, thus creating a new history from the old and bringing to light contemporary concerns of consumerism and communism.