From one to another, 2025, oak, photographs, an exact replica of Marcel Breuer’s TI-1A chair, bolts, cardboard box, tape, label, dimensions variable.
From one to another, 2025, oak, photographs, an exact replica of Marcel Breuer’s TI-1A chair, bolts, cardboard box, tape, label, dimensions variable.
A broken bed was found when cleaning out the collective studio storeroom. No one knew where it came from, and it was saved it from the trash. A few weeks later, a photograph of the same bed was discovered, pinned to the wall of the studio hallway. There were no further clues regarding the history or origin of the object. After some research, the only certainties were that it was made in Germany from European oak at some stage in the 1920s, most likely locally to Weimar. In that way, it was not too dissimilar from Marcel Breuer’s TI-1A chair, one of his first designs realised in the Bauhaus Holzwerkstatt. However, only one of these objects had survived the test of time. The bed was processed into an exact replica of Breuer’s chair, modified to be flat packable and easily repaired. The resulting installation plays with absence and presence simultaneously. Both objects are theoretically present through the material used (the offcuts of the bed, the chair in a cardboard box) but only fully visible through images (the original found photograph of the bed, the label on the box).
Installation view as part of Unboxing Bauhaus at Kunsthaus Kunstverein Potsdam, Germany. Images 1 & 5 courtesy of Bernd Hiepe, and images 2, 3 & 4 courtesy of Charlotte Rein.