BEASTS

The new series for Side Gallery by Sam Chermayeff Office, tentatively called Beasts is both a continuation of and departure from previous work. Each of the twenty plus works is a body that invites our bodies to inhabit specific settings. A chair is a desk, a hutch is place to put on shoes and make-up, a sofa is a place to face ones interlocutor and so on. Each piece endeavours to engender a new relationship between our diverse physicalities and our everyday lives. In some cases we use these pieces alone and in others they bring us together. We understand ourselves through our interactions with the pieces and we commune with others.

Sam Chermayeff Office has been working on the idea of the body in relation to our use of furniture for a long time. This show is no different but as a series, distilled here, it is taking a further step by quite literally sharping our connection to the work. It is reflective and as such we see ourselves. Its forms come from typologies that we understand intuitively. A table is still a table, even if it is also a light that supports its reflecting surface. This reflection might make the object disappear while its function, eating, working and so on come to the fore. It also makes us, doing those things, appear.  

Prior to this show, this series, the office tried to make things happy, relatable because of an abstract idea of joy. Here the joy remains and is seen in our inhabitation. We are expected to use these things, to put our lives onto and into them. They are called Beasts because we must take the last step of their creation.