Tom Sachs: Furniture is an extension of Sachs’ sculpture practice, he has been designing and building furniture for 30 years. This is the artist’s first gallery exhibition of his furniture in the United States in over twenty years. Sachs’ furniture is conspicuously handmade and shows evidence of each piece’s construction, removing it from the realm of miraculous conception that pervades industry. This transparency—the idea of showing marks—tells the story of the making. The more we can tell the story, the more we can invest in our things and build greater connections with the items and rituals in our daily lives. Sachs challenges us to reflect on the objects we buy; the furniture we have, our sound systems and the music they play, and reminds us everything is art – it’s about the rituals that activate it.
Tom Sachs (b.1966, New York) Artist. Sachs’ genre defying mixed media sculptures, often recreations of modern icons using everyday materials, show all of the work that goes into producing an object – a reversal of modernization trend towards products with cleaner, simpler, and more perfect edges. Sachs’s sculptures are conspicuously handmade; lovingly cobbled together from plywood, resin, steel, and ceramic. The scars and imperfections in the sculptures tell the story of how it came into being and remove it from the realm of miraculous conception. His studio team of ten functions like a teaching hospital or cult, that worships plywood and an ethos of transparency.
