By making an overall sense of style more important than the individual objects on show the directors of Fashion Moda (and of Collaborative Projects, for that matter) use techniques of display in an attempt to begin a certain kind of subversion. An entirely opposite strategy, taking utilitarian objects and elevating their importance as cultural signs, can also be used to similar effect. This seems to be, in part, the intent of artists making furniture as art.
A decision to forge a direct link between making art and making useful objects stems from the Arts and Crafts movement. Thus it was an interesting coincidence that the small show of Antonio Gaudi’s furniture at lolas occurred at the same time as a more ambitious exhibition of contemporary artists’ furniture around the comer at Marian Goodman.
The Gaudi designs all dated from around 1902–04, although the actual pieces on display were recent reproductions. Included in the show were a couple of chairs and a large mirror from the Casa Calvet, and a bench and small chair from the Casa Batilló. They all had a chunky, home-made quality strangely at odds with their almost precious Art Nouveau designs. They looked like rugged, country versions of a city style.
Like most furniture designed by architects, these pieces were made for a specific use, and a specific place within an overall design. It was this particularity of object to place, as much as the direct intervention of the artist in production, that gave the Arts and Crafts movement its political impetus. It became clear that it was not so much a matter of form following function—instead, form was the function. A piece of furniture was certainly a useful object, but a good part of that use was esthetic. It could be admired, but its uniqueness as a work of art was not the primary issue. Rather, what was at stake was an understanding of how each element operated as a sign in the larger ensemble.
When furniture of this sort is isolated from its original surroundings and put on display in a museum or gallery, all this changes: the piece becomes a desirable commodity, an objet d’art to be coveted for the status it might confer. We can no longer see it, only desire it. Its original meaning is lost and it becomes merely an item of exchange.
—Thomas Lawson
