Robert Wilson: Chairs

This unprecedented angle on the oeuvre of Robert Wilson reveals the importance of chair design for his cross-medium art

For American experimental theater stage director and playwright Robert Wilson (born 1941), theater is a totality of visual, textual and performative mediums. Wilson has incorporated furniture designs into his scenography since his earliest productions in the 1960s. “In almost all of my plays, there is a chair specially designed,” he said. “Often, the chairs are much like an actor.” Wilson’s chairs, with their frequently referential names (the Kafka Chair, Queen Victoria Chairs, the Mondrian Chair), assume expanded significance as the surviving artifacts of each performance.
The works in this publication range from 1969 to 2011, from the stainless steel mesh Parzival Sofa (1987) to the painted wood Clementine Hunter Rocker (2011). Wilson’s practice as a designer is illuminated by his practice as a collector, with pieces in materials ranging from wood, bronze and steel to taxidermied legs, tempered glass and neon. This publication includes several works never previously exhibited.