.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Throughout his career Kuramata experimented with the translucency of materials, dream-inspired forms and altered perceptions of space, registering Marcel Duchamp, Dan Flavin, and Donald Judd amongst his inspirations. This work, which is amongst the designer's most poetic, embraces all three aesthetic-emotive inspirations to offer reference to the corsage carried by Vivien Leigh's character Blanche Dubois, the primary character in the 1951 adaptation of Tennessee Williams' play "A Streetcar Named Desire", and remains amongst the designer's most poetic works. The floating, artificial roses, suspended in a transparent acrylic seat, poignantly suggest the frailty of transient emotion, the locking of an imaginary passage of time that is sealed by the unceremonious rigidity of the anodised aluminium legs. Kuramata later recalled that the inclusion of the cased roses - dream-like and melancholic, trapped for eternity as an insect in amber - offered hommage to Duchamp's female alter-ego, Rrose Sélavy, and her ready-mades.
Designed in 1988, the first example was produced the following year with the sponsorship of the Kokuyo Company. Subsequently the chairs were manufactured by Ishimaru Company, Ltd., and were retailed through the Kuramata Design Office, which had been founded in 1965. Production of the model concluded in 1998 with the 56th chair, a figure selected to honour Kuramata's death at the age of 56. Examples of this design are retained in the collections of SFMoMA, MoMA, and the Vitra Design Museum.
Designed in 1988, the first example was produced the following year with the sponsorship of the Kokuyo Company. Subsequently the chairs were manufactured by Ishimaru Company, Ltd., and were retailed through the Kuramata Design Office, which had been founded in 1965. Production of the model concluded in 1998 with the 56th chair, a figure selected to honour Kuramata's death at the age of 56. Examples of this design are retained in the collections of SFMoMA, MoMA, and the Vitra Design Museum.