Artist:

Martin Boyce (b. 1967 in Glasgow, Scotland; lives and works in Scotland).

Materials:

Powder coated steel, chain, wire and chair parts; dimensions variable.

Description:

“Suspended Fall 2005 is a hanging mobile with six balanced elements joined by lengths of wire and powder coated steel. Each of the elements consists of a sawn section of vintage Jacobsen Series 7 chairs, which the artist bought in Berlin. Hung freely in the gallery space, the individual elements of the work can move independently or as a whole when prompted by air movement or direct contact. Designed by Arne Jacobsen (1902–1971) in 1957, the Series 7 chair was    styled for modern living. Although the ideology and ambition of Jacobsen’s modernism have faded, the classic plywood moulded chair is still being manufactured using the same methods and materials, and it has become one of the most popular chairs of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. Suspended Fall makes reference to the art of Alexander Calder (1898–1976) and his distinctive, colourful mobiles of the 1930s which in turn were influenced by the abstract work of Piet Mondrian (1872–1944) and Joan Mir¿ (1893–1983). The work explores and reflects the cross-fertilisation of ideas and forms between art and design during the period of early twentieth-century modernism. It is one of an ongoing series of mobiles that Boyce has been making since 2001.”

– Clarrie Wallis, ‘Martin Boyce, Suspended Fall, 2005,’ Tate website