I knew it'd be hard to top the one South Willard and Reference Library already flagged, Yasufumi Nakamura's Seven Chairs, kid-size riffs on iconic modernist chair silhouettes.
But I really wanted to see what kind of kid-size chairs the other nine talented Japanese wood craftsmen might have included in a Chairs For Children exhibit. And what, I wonder, would we learn from this curation of chairs? And what, now that you mention it, does it teach us about the illustration legacy of Chihiro Okazaki, in whose little memorial museum the exhibition was held?
Yeah, well, let's take those questions in reverse order: Nothing, it basically makes Eric Carle's Eric Carle Museum look like the Louvre. Nothing, the organizing principle of the show was apparently, sometimes chairs are almost like art, pretty chairs from ten designers, have fun! That's not an exaggeration.
And after rummaging around through the Chihiro Museum's website, I finally found the rest of the show. And yeah, Nakamura wins this round. Though these three aren't bad. Clockwise from top left: Udagakwa Takashi's Dwarf Chair; Yamagata Eizo's Andalusia Kids Chair [my favorite]; and Muranishi Takakazu's Sora-mame something BABY, which I'm going to guess refers to a Japanese fairy tale character I don't recognize.
Oh wow, I didn't even notice until it was photographed separately that one of Nakamura's Seven Chairs is a variation on Rietveld's Red and Blue Chair. That is sweet.
こどもの椅子展, 6-7/2011 [chihiro.jp, google trans]
Chairs for Children's Room, Nakamura Yasufumi [infoseek.co.jp via reference library]
Everything after this post is in italics.
I am really not used to chairs having titles. thanks.
Yeah I can see how that might trip one up. :)