Furniture sculpture 1990

Here are two sofas with matching monochrome panels, it's 'furniture sculpture' by John Armleder. The color choices—those pale pinks, the tangerine, the white—they’re kind of brash, like a clown. It's almost offensive but, you know, in a good way. It's like being pushed into a party you don't wanna go to, but then you have a blast. I love the physical jumble of this piece: the texture of the tufted upholstery, the cool, flat surface of the painted panels and the shiny, newly-lacquered legs of the couch, all in conversation with each other. It’s hard to tell if Armleder bought these ready-made or fabricated them himself. It doesn’t really matter, this blurring of the boundaries between making and finding is part of the point. Think of the readymades of Marcel Duchamp, who also used everyday objects to create art, or even the performances of the Fluxus group with their use of unusual materials, the use of found objects. Art is about a way of seeing and putting things together.