Mozart’s Chair

The exhibition Mozart’s Chair considers how furniture establishes the preconditions for action. It does so not by exhibiting furniture (per se), but by assembling works of art that approach the condition of furniture as setting, support structure, and as objects that have an indeterminate relationship to our bodies. Within a gallery, one often assumes that art is always in the foreground, while that which supports the presentation of art is in the background. Artists have long challenged viewers to perceive things otherwise—to admit the influence of what might be dismissed as mere context, atmosphere, ambiance, or decoration. Mozart’s Chair builds on this inquiry. Through sculpture, painting, installation, performance, and sound, the exhibition is like a score, a composition exploring the enabling effect of an object, getting to a fundamental question: what does the art object make possible?

The inverse of this question, what makes art possible, is highlighted by the American composer Morton Feldman in a quote that informs the exhibition’s title. Feldman writes, “[m]y concern at times is nothing more than establishing a series of practical conditions that will enable me to work. For years I said if I could only find a comfortable chair I would rival Mozart.” Known for his embrace of indeterminacy and chance operations, as well his approach to treating music like an object, Feldman inverts the expected agency of the artist over the artwork, subject over object, by suggesting that the difference between himself and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart might be merely the chair he uses (rather than, say, technical skill or aesthetic interest). 

While not all the works in Mozart’s Chair can be considered furniture, they all critically engage three specific qualities of furniture: one’s shifting awareness of furniture’s presence in the foreground/background; furniture’s indeterminate and incidental nature; and the use of furniture as a prop or performance object.

Artists featured in the exhibition: Scott Burton, Guy de Cointet, Céline Condorelli, Naotaka Hiro, Helen Marten, Devin T. Mays, Park McArthur, Stephen Prina, and Erik Satie. The exhibition includes an extensive performance series that animates the gallery space, including the first posthumous production of de Cointet’s play A NEW LIFE (1981) with dramaturgy by scholar and curator Marie de Brugerolle. The exhibition itself will shift arrangement over time, suggesting it is not just the works themselves, but the world they create together, that exists indeterminately.

Curated by Associate Director and Curator of Visual Arts Benjamin Chaffee with Assistant Director of Exhibitions and Assistant Curator of Education Rosemary Lennox and Art Preparator Paul Theriault.

Events
Sophie Becker Ronnie’s World: September 26, 7pm
Ring Family Performing Arts Hall, Wesleyan University

Saturday student-led exhibition tours: October 3, 2pm
Student-led tours of the exhibition are offered most Saturdays during the exhibit

Stephen Prina artist talk : November 5, 4:30pm

Stephen Prina’s String Quartet for Six Players: November 7, 2pm
Performed by Either/Or Ensemble with John Biatowas and Alex Waterman

Performance of Guy de Cointet's A New Life: February 12–13, directed by Amanda Horowitz, dramaturgy by Marie de Brugerolle

Support for this exhibition provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.