Strength
2013
15 chairs, Horgenglarus Classic version

There is something playful and wrong about this installation. The arrangement of the chairs is reminiscent of the musical chairs game, but the way they are aligned prevents the game from taking place. In the installation, the figure-eight shape is evident from the aligned chairs. The backrests clearly outline a continuous line forming the figure-eight shape. On one side, the chairs face inwards, and on the other side, outwards; the two sides are connected at the centre by a chair that is part of both circles. As in other works, connection, disconnection, the yearning for human communication, and the individual and the collective are central themes in the creation of this piece.

Strength is part of a group of works that raise questions about the body, distance and proximity, tension and the yearning for communication and explicitly use standard furniture elements as raw material. These include Untitled (Cairo) (2010), High Five (2015) and Idle (2017).

The chairs chosen for the Kunsthaus Glarus installation were intentionally selected from the local manufacturer Horgenglarus and featured an original design dating back to 1918. A new chair type is deliberatelyallatio chosen for each subsequent instn based on contextual considerations.

Kunsthaus Glarus, 2013. Photo: David Aebi