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Rietveld Chair

1981
Not on view
The wood frame of Gerrit Rietveld’s famous red-and-blue chair was painted black, to match the walls of the De Stijl house for which it was designed. Against those dark walls, its planes of primary color would seem to float, rendering the chair itself almost transparent. Charlesworth recreates this trick on film: inverting the chair’s iconic form, she considers its legacy in absentia. It appears here in reverse silhouette, as an aperture through which other chairs are seen. A life-sized photographic negative of the chair, accented with yellow gels, lies atop this collage, and red and blue wood frames the piece. Transforming her camera into a critical tool, Charlesworth deconstructs the iconic image of the chair, undercutting its implicit equation of form and function.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Rietveld Chair
  • Artist: Sarah Charlesworth (American, East Orange, New Jersey 1947–2013 Hartford, Connecticut)
  • Date: 1981
  • Medium: Gelatin silver print with applied colored gels in custom lacquered frame
  • Dimensions: Frame: 67 7/8 × 50 1/4 × 1 5/8 in. (172.4 × 127.6 × 4.1 cm)
  • Classification: Photographs
  • Credit Line: Purchase, Harvey Sawikin and Andrea Krantz Gift and Vital Projects Fund Inc. Gift, through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 2017
  • Object Number: 2017.3
  • Rights and Reproduction: © The Estate of Sarah Charlesworth
  • Curatorial Department: Photographs

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