The Wit of Sitting
If you think a chair just sits there, you've never sat in one designed by Thomas Loeser. A professor of art, Loeser crafts furniture that tempts, intrigues, challenges, cajoles, sometimes intimidates ... but never just stands around with nothing better to do.
Consider the plush-looking circular benches Loeser designed for gallery-goers. They don't offer a resting spot so much as a show. The seats are rigged with ball bearings, so that any shift or movement sets the bench — and anyone sitting on it — in motion. "It can cause power struggles," says Loeser, "because the sitters have to negotiate who decides the direction in which the bench turns, and how fast."
Consider the plush-looking circular benches Loeser designed for gallery-goers. They don't offer a resting spot so much as a show. The seats are rigged with ball bearings, so that any shift or movement sets the bench — and anyone sitting on it — in motion. "It can cause power struggles," says Loeser, "because the sitters have to negotiate who decides the direction in which the bench turns, and how fast."
Similarly, Loeser's "The Folding Chair," a 1982 design that helped install him among the nation's premier furniture designers, defies utilitarian categorization. Folded flat, the otherwise functional seat becomes a two-dimensional piece of abstract art, suitable for hanging on the wall.
Loeser describes such pieces as "kinetic," which could signify their movable parts, or the stir they've caused among designers and collectors. Critics have described his designs as "witty," "engaging," and "unexpected." He sells many pieces through a New York gallery.
In June, some four hundred furniture designers from around the country came to Madison for the Furniture Society's sixth annual conference, which Loeser organized. He also co-curated (with Virginia Boyd, a professor of environment, textiles, and design) a spring exhibition of furniture design at the Elvehjem Museum of Art.
Loeser describes such pieces as "kinetic," which could signify their movable parts, or the stir they've caused among designers and collectors. Critics have described his designs as "witty," "engaging," and "unexpected." He sells many pieces through a New York gallery.
In June, some four hundred furniture designers from around the country came to Madison for the Furniture Society's sixth annual conference, which Loeser organized. He also co-curated (with Virginia Boyd, a professor of environment, textiles, and design) a spring exhibition of furniture design at the Elvehjem Museum of Art.
