“A Chair and You” is a major traveling exhibition that showcases one of the largest private collections of chairs, comprising works by over 100 artists, designers, and architects from the 1960s to the present day. The collection, initiated in the 1990s by Geneva-based entrepreneur and collector Thierry Barbier-Mueller, is being presented to the public for the first time. From the extensive collection, 211 chairs were selected for the exhibition, with American director Robert Wilson entrusted with creating the scenography. The result is a grand spectacle where each chair takes center stage.
The Museum of Applied Arts Leipzig houses this extraordinary collection, which goes far beyond the simple typology of chairs. Since the late 1990s, Barbier-Mueller has assembled countless innovative and unusual chair designs. Disregarding a chronological or authorial approach, Wilson started with light as the defining element of each of the four exhibition rooms. Sound follows, with the chairs themselves only appearing in the final stage of the experience. Artificial light is treated very differently from space to space, and the sound isn’t merely atmospheric; it shapes the idea of a total work of art, characteristic of the American director’s work.
The result is an emotional journey, devoid of captions, in which the visitor is drawn into the experience and, as in the theater, is overwhelmed by the visual impact of the scenes: the first room is bright and bustling with pieces by Andrea Branzi, Michele De Lucchi, Charles Kaisen, among others; the second is eclectic with a circular plan; while the third recovers the rigor of a geometric arrangement, which reaches its peak in the final room. This last space, completely dark and illuminated by beams of spotlight, leads, as in the fourth act of an opera, to the final catharsis.
