Yale Bulletin and Calendar

April 26-May 3, 1999

Volume 27, Number 30

'Please Be Seated': Yale Art Gallery
show invites public to rest a spell

The newest exhibition at the Yale University Art Gallery invites the public to come and look at the very objects that they've long been invited to sit on.

Over the past dozen years, the Yale museum's American decorative arts department has built up a collection of handcrafted chairs, benches and stools by contemporary furniture makers for use as public seating throughout the galleries.

This group of 19 unique pieces of furniture has been brought together for the exhibit "Please Be Seated: Contemporary Studio Seating Furniture," which will be on view May 1-Aug. 8.

The "Please Be Seated" collection was originally inspired by the collection of the same name organized by Jonathan Fairbanks at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

It was Yale alumnus Dr. Julian Fisher '69 B.A. who proposed in 1987 "giving a piece or two to the Yale Art Gallery for on-going public display and use." Over the years, Fisher's generosity has made possible the acquisition of the pieces in the Yale collection. To express its appreciation, the gallery has timed this exhibit to coincide with the alumnus' 30th class reunion.

Kari Main, a third-year graduate student in the American studies department, planned the "Please Be Seated" exhibition as part of her work as a Marcia Brady Tucker Fellow at the Yale Art Gallery in 1998. She continued her research on the collection in an independent study with Edward S. Cooke Jr., the Charles F. Montgomery Professor of Decorative Arts.

In preparing for the exhibit, Main sent questionnaires to the artisans themselves, asking them about their goals in creating the pieces and how the works fit into their overall career in furniture making. "Some artists were intent on creating comfortable furniture, while others were making a piece of sculpture," she says.

Robert Soule's "Ownbey Chair No. 4" and Robert Erickson's "Van Muyden Chair," for example, were expressly designed as practical furnishings for specific customers, while Alphonse Mattia's "Golden Banana Valet Chair" and John Cederquist's "Revenge of the Deconstructionist Saw Chair" are among the works that stress form over function, says Main. Several of the benches combine function, art and wit, she notes, including Judy Kensley McKie's bronze "Alligator Bench" and Silas Kopf's trompe l'oeil "Marquetry Bench."

The chairs and benches on display have been removed from their usual locations in the gallery, and gathered into one room. Some of the older pieces had to be retrieved from the gallery's furniture collection. "We've taken some from retirement," explains Main. "Those works were taken from public view because they had had so much use."

While some of the works on exhibit in "Please Be Seated" will remain for-eyes-only, the rest will continue to serve their original function as public seating -- i.e., places where museum visitors can rest while contemplating the other seats on display.

"The public will be able to sit in about half of the works on exhibit," says Main, adding that some of the chairs and benches "are extremely comfortable."

Not all the pieces on exhibit will be on the floor, however, notes Main. One work, by Thomas Loeser, is a folding chair that collapses into a two-dimensional object and comes with a wall bracket so it can be hung like a painting. "He was originally inspired by the Shaker concept of hanging chairs on the wall when they are not in use," explains Main. "Then he took the concept a step further and created a chair that could also function as art on a wall."

"Please Be Seated" is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue written by Main, with an essay about and biographies of each craftsperson. The catalogue was funded by the Center for the Study of American Art and Material Culture and is on sale at the gallery's museum shop.

In conjunction with the exhibit, there will be a symposium at the gallery titled "Craft and Design in America: The Twentieth Century" on Friday, May 7, beginning at
5 p.m. Boston Museum of Fine Arts curator Jonathan Fairbanks will present the keynote address at the symposium, which is free and open to the public.

The Yale University Art Gallery, located at the corner of York and Chapel streets, is open to the public free of charge 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday and 1-6 p.m. Sunday. An entrance for persons using wheelchairs is located at 201 York St., with an unmetered parking space nearby. For further information, call 432-0600, or visit the museum's website at www.yale.edu/artgallery.

-- By LuAnn Bishop

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