Side Chair 1936

This is a drawing of a side chair made in June 1936 by Michael Trekur. The artist has used pencil and paper in a mechanical way to present us with something that could be functional. It's like looking at the chair in two different ways. On the left, we see it straight on, legs neatly measured out. On the right, a kind of ghostly cross-section, as if we could peer inside its very structure. I imagine Trekur, an artist of Ukrainian origin, carefully marking each measurement. The drawing looks very precise and detailed; it includes all the measurements someone would need to make one. The scale is written at the bottom of the piece of paper: 3/16 to 1 inch. It reminds me that art isn't just about what we see, but how we understand the nuts and bolts of the world around us.