Two Chairs by Ana Roldán

Facts

Material: Wood, lacquer
Size: 90 x 38 x 40 cm, each
Description: Two shiny lacquered chairs, one black, one white, face the glass fronted alcoves that look onto the central lift shaft of our Zurich headquarters. Commissioned especially for the space (to mark our 150th anniversary in 2013), the back frame of each chair incorporates a four letter word. One reads RISK, the other LIFE, reflecting our core business.
Location: Zurich, Altbau

Image copyright: Stefan Altenburger

You are resting on the foundations of the company’s business − life and risk − while resting on an art piece that allows you to look at great works by Tatsuo Miyajima and Olafur Eliasson.

Ana Roldán

The back frame of each chair incorporates a four letter word.

One reads RISK, the other LIFE, reflecting our core business.

Therefore, for the audience, ie our employees, Roldán chose a form that is double coded. As chairs, her work can be easily used: "You are resting on the foundations of the company's business − life and risk − while resting on an art piece that allows you to look at great works by Tatsuo Miyajima and Olafur Eliasson. I wanted to invite people to sit in these specific balconies to contemplate the art pieces."

There are more complex ways to read the piece. While sitting on it, you can’t see it while you perceive other art pieces. Its visual disappearance is the condition of art contemplation.

Ana Roldán

The chairs face the glass fronted alcoves that look onto the central lift shaft of our Zurich headquarters.

It is a sculpture that pretends to be a chair, whose backrest is a sculpture of a word written in a typography Roldán developed.

"Of course", says Ana Roldán, "there are more complex ways to read the piece. While sitting on it, you can't see it while you perceive other art pieces. Its visual disappearance is the condition of art contemplation." It is a sculpture that pretends to be a chair, whose backrest is a sculpture of a word written in a typography Roldán developed.