Armchair

Gunnar Aagaard Andersen, 1964 · Gallery 417 · Floor 4

It's a portrait. Of his mother's chair. Gunnar Aagaard Andersen called it Portrait of My Mother's Chesterfield. MoMA just calls it Armchair. A Chesterfield is a big leather chair with deep buttons. Arms as high as the back. Very respectable. This one has the arms and the back. After that, things get loose. It looks less upholstered than just spilled. Because it was. In 1964, Andersen goes to a foam factory and pours liquid polyurethane by hand. It swells up and sets. He pours more on top. Then more. There's no frame inside. No mold around it. The padding that usually hides inside a chair is now doing the whole job. Before this, Andersen was a painter. Hard edges. Right angles. Here, if the foam goes sideways, it just goes sideways. He makes about a dozen chairs and sofas before he has to stop. Toxic fumes and the old risk of explosion thing. Andersen had a question: "Why shouldn't applied art be allowed to be ugly?" Applied art. Ya know, things you actually use. Now look at those little holes in the arm. Andersen didn't make those. The foam is turning brittle. Bits of it are falling away. MoMA says it's one of the most fragile objects it owns. An armchair.

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