#tommy simpson

Tommy Simpson, Desk, USA,

Walnut, cherry, inlaid wood,

7: create a poem out of song titlesYikes, okay. I’ll try lmao

I am not bulletproof…I wish I was dead flowersOver our graves, after we’ve diedFrom choking on flowersA cross-section of our potential selvesA world without ourselvesLove me as I amI’m real. I have made mistakesI’m a nervous wreck, and I don’t trust myselfI am trying–I don’t really wanna tryI don’t hate my body, I’m just afraid of itSometimes it feels like someone else is wearing my bodyWaiting in the meadow for my soul to find meStorm coming across the meadow, not leaving as the rain beginsI lay in the great meadow until it grew over meAnd I blossomed into myselfHere I am.This is all there is.

Thanks!

Olivia Rettstatt- Curatorial Intern

In the ever-evolving world, there is constant conversation regarding what is and isn’t “art.” I find myself frustrated and confused by trying to define the term, the complex and counterintuitive meanings. This conversation is global, stretching beyond museums galleries, and runways, into Raymour & Flanigan, Pottery Barn and IKEA. I am getting at furniture. Are my bed, sofa or dining room table pieces of art or sole necessity with some element of aesthetic appeal? Where does one draw the line, or even begin? Furniture embodies all of the elements found in paintings, sculptures, and mixed media: creative design inspiration, common techniques, genres, even dialogue. However, it often gets separated into another genre entirely—known as Applied Arts—or forms mixed emotions when people find themselves perplexed when they see utilitarian objects become unlivable. Armchairs coated with spiked pencil tips, curved bowl seats unfit for the human body, or even thrones infested with live Mycelium fit the bill for making the practical, impractical. What the heck are these things: art, object, or both?

I think I have come to realize—through how society categorizes everything—that objects that lose or change in function become ‘art.’ To me, an old-fashioned fan-girl of Van Eyck, Dürer, and Klimt, a contemporary art world seems to favor the more dramatic or outlandish. Those works merit better attention and responses, defining them successful. For these once ‘normal’ objects like high heels, turned into ankle-snapping weapons for Alexander McQueen runway shows, or fur-coated, Méret Oppenheim tea cups, looking and not touching defines them as art. I digress from my tangent and bring us finally to the NBMAA. Though we do not have over-the-top, solely decorative pieces of furniture on permanent display, we do have many gorgeous and functioning benches to rest upon and to aid in admiring our art. Artist designed and fabricated, some benches are treated as works accessioned by the Museum, while others simply fill a gap where our visitors may need to sit. I wonder how many of these crafted works are ignored, cast aside as a place to stop and tie your shoe or to ponder instead Alfred Bierstadt’s landscapes. Just because they are set below eye level, used and not gawked at, does not make them any less artistically valuable. It is merely a matter of changing perspective.

Pencil chair, 2005, Kerstin Schulz (b. Germany, 1967), Wooden chair, pencils

BARCAWooden Chair Inspired Big Boats, 2013, Jakob Joerdensen (b. Scandanavia, 1977)

The Mycelium Chair, 2013, Eric Klarenbeek  (b. Amsterdam, 1978), 3D printed chair, powdered plastic, mycelium

I’ve thought about this notion for quite some time now. Long before Marcel Duchamp made a urinal thought-provoking and a reclined shovel beautiful, or young hip artists coated home goods in glass—to prove psychological or emotional points—there were craftsmen who united form and function more subtly in an approachable manner. I think back to my recent four-month stay in Vienna, Austria, the works of the Secessionist architecture and design tycoons Otto Wagner (1841-1918), Josef Hoffman (1870-1956) and Koloman Moser (1868-1918) coming to mind. I question the paradigm of beauty and utility that they theorized, revolutionized and perhaps even prophesied back in turn of the century Vienna. Though a thought shared by these men in the Wiener Werkstatte (Vienna Workshop) was that practicality, or function, and beauty could not coexist in design, I saw clear contradiction in their work. I all along thought their intention was to forge art and life. Curiously I find myself working at the Museum, filled with what I consider this very opposition—handmade and charmingly designed wooden, stone, bronze and steel benches to look at AND rest on, adorning each gallery, as well as a new gallery dedicated solely to Shaker ephemera. It is true that these works are not outlandish, riveting, visceral or even frightening like some more contemporary pieces boast, but they still deserve to be simultaneously appreciated as art and practical pieces. They are truly works you can sit on!

“Long before Marcel Duchamp made a urinal thought-provoking and a reclined shovel beautiful, or young hip artists coated home goods in glass...”

Of our benches, my favorite is Tommy Simpson’s 2005 A Kiss and a Spoon Bring Dessert on Soon!. This playfully titled creation presents us with a myriad of woods: walnut, orange, laurel, oak and zebra wood. As with differing pigments, Simpson selected each wood for not only is durability and malleability, but also I would assume its hue and grain pattern. The whimsy of this bench is evoked in the natural curved edges, etched font, swirls and divots. If it weren’t overshadowed by Edwin Church’s masterpiece before it, and instead set in a bare room, I would argue that people would call it art. A visitor favorite, the chubby bronze bear bench, also should be discussed. Is Grizzly Bear Bench by Judy Kensley McKie not just a statue tipped on its front, its textured back smoothed by our behinds? The Shaker gallery is, however, a display of furniture pieces that are certainly not meant to be touched or used. This is only due to their age, as back in their heyday men, women, and children used these wooden works to write letters, make meals, knit, and read. I would deduce, then, that it is only the passage of time in this case that transforms the once usable objects into items meant for admiration in a gallery. They are now artifacts, admired for the beauty which they may or may not have been created for.

All in all, I aim for opening a discussion on whether or not what we use around us is categorically art. Though I appreciate the Avant-guard, refurbished chairs found in the likes of the MoMA or Metropolitan Museum of Art, I question whether the ‘mundane,’ if you will, can be considered just as valuable. Not in a gallery space, but your house or office, is where I would like to find this form of art. Next time you visit the New Britain Museum of American Art, or any museum—anywhere with furniture for that matter—take  a closer look at what you’re sitting on.

A Kiss and a Spoon Bring Dessert on Soon, 2004-05, Tommy Simpson (b.1939), Top Claro Walnut, Osage Orange, American Orange, Connecticut Laurel, Zebra wood and English Oak