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Accession # 2012.54
Designer Vivian Beer
Maker Vivian Beer Studio Works
Title "Current" Chair
Date designed 2004, manufactured 2008
Medium Formed and fabricated steel and automotive paint
Dimensions 32 1/8 x 16 x 22 in. (81.6 x 40.6 x 55.9 cm)
Marks No marks found (chair too heavy to move).
Credit Line Gift of Mrs. J. Fuller Feder, Marcus S. Friedlander, and Mrs. Clifford D. Mallory in memory of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Rogers Mallory, by exchange
Location Visible Storage: Case 8, Shelf F (Contemporary Furniture)
Description Heavy, light blue formed and fabricated steel chair. Chair created by forming the hot steel over a jig and fabricating as if cut apart, the technique creating a chair with an undulating, upward, chair seat, and convex chair back; the whole appearing as if formed with ribbons of cut steel. Each chair produced in the artist’s studio.

Curatorial Remarks: The dynamic, curvilinear design of the “Current” Chair seems to defy the strength and hardness of the steel from which it is made. Historically, few women have worked in metal other than to fashion jewelry, and fewer still have made metal furniture. About her innovative design Beer remarked: “I wanted this chair to seem as if it had been cut and crushed out of a single sheet of metal. At the same time I wanted it to feel as fast and clean as water in its silhouette…. The Balance and the trickery are important.” The chair’s title suggests that the artist’s choice of blue alludes to swiftly moving water.