Objet d’Art: Off-kilter
PHOTO COURTESY OF YVETA KOPICOVA.
Every month, Interview picks an artist or designer created object that straddles the line between aesthetics and function. Subdued tastes need not apply.
Rather than fight the spirit of today’s topsy-turvy times, why not embrace it with this statement bookcase from multi-hyphenate Czech designer JiÅ?i Pelcl? Erratic Boulder Bookcase—which was made in 1998 and recently shown at Design Miami—is currently on view in “This is Today,” an exhibition curated by Matylda Krzykowski at Chamber Gallery. Krzykowski—whom we profiled in our November 2016 issue—believes “good design products help us understand why we move through the world the way we do.”
With its amoeba-like shape, unabashedly oversized proportions, and tilted cubbyholes, Pelcl’s bookcase may very well pose more questions than answers. As Pelcl tells it, this is all by design. “I notice an increasing disparity in my surroundings between the outward form of a functional object and the inner mechanism ensuring its function,” he says of the piece. “Enclosed masses are a reflection on that situation. The outer form speaks to us, but we don’t know what is inside.”
No matter what you display upon it (if anything at all), calling this piece a conversation starter hardly feels adequate—it’s more like a Pandora’s box.
ERRATIC BOULDER BOOKCASE IS AVAILABLE THROUGH CHAMBER GALLERY (PRICE UPON REQUEST).
Objet D’Art runs every month. For more, click here.
