Ort&distort
The work of buro Staal|Christensen
The 1991 Cow Chair, a provoking marriage between Rietveld’s Zigzag and Corbusier’s Chaise Longue, is the most recent acquisition of the art collection of TU Eindhoven. The chair is one of the antics of Eindhoven-based architect Bert Staal and artist Matty Christensen, whose works exemplify the border between art and architecture. As selfproclaimed Homo Ludens, Staal and Christensen design through play, improvising in a fashion similar to jazz or improv theater. Their provoking, often humorist and at times even cartoonesque designs are the product of quoting, modifying and combining found objects and references. With this exhibition, the Cow Chair is inaugurated in the department and a liberating way of design thinking is celebrated.
The exhibition Ort&distOrt revolves around the transformations or ‘acts’ that are commonly performed in the work of the duo. Without categorizing the individual works, the following are some of the transformations applied to the found objects: rotate, tilt, abstract, juxtapose, collage, exaggerate; resulting in work that at times deliberately confuses. The designs have a paradoxical quality of being designed artefacts, be it a chair or a table, while simultaneously incorporating the element of chance and randomness. Similar to the tension between a ruler’s line and a pencil’s line; a uniform and a rag; a fancy dinnertable and the leftovers after a binge. In Bert’s words, the goal is to disturb an assumption, a format, an agreement. If we do not join Staal in his associations, then we will also not parttake in the enjoyable potential of architecture.
The opening concluded with a performance on Sitting by Bert Staal and Arie van Rangelrooij.
This new exhibition is organized by Casa VerAgo in cooperation with buro Staal|Christensen and The Architecture Circus.
Exhibition ‘Ort&distor – buro Staal|Christensent’
Plaza Vertigo, TUe
March 24 – April 29, 2022
www.casavrt.nl
www.architecturecircus.com
www.staalchristensen.nl