chair (Primary Title)
Robert Lazzarini, American, born 1965 (Artist)
"One of the subjects I work with is the genre of the still life. When I did this series that I call “studio objects”—a chair, a rotary phone, and a set of hammers all from my studio—I was . . . interested in representing the studio as a place of prolonged isolation, where the objects become a product of that isolation."—Robert Lazzarini
Since the mid-1990s, Lazzarini has explored the possibilties of visual distortion in sculpted still lifes and drawings that apply accelerated perspective to individual objects. Although Lazzarini employs photographs, computers, and numerous assistants to help him achieve his illusions, his sculptures are the work of a virtuoso craftsman. Traditional, monochromatic sculpture challenges an artist to transform one material (for example, marble) into another (for example, flesh). Lazzarini, however, constructed chair of actual wood and used carefully applied pigments to give it the appearance of age. It does not simply look like a chair; it is a chair, although it appears so only when mentally “corrected.”
Since the mid-1990s, Lazzarini has explored the possibilties of visual distortion in sculpted still lifes and drawings that apply accelerated perspective to individual objects. Although Lazzarini employs photographs, computers, and numerous assistants to help him achieve his illusions, his sculptures are the work of a virtuoso craftsman. Traditional, monochromatic sculpture challenges an artist to transform one material (for example, marble) into another (for example, flesh). Lazzarini, however, constructed chair of actual wood and used carefully applied pigments to give it the appearance of age. It does not simply look like a chair; it is a chair, although it appears so only when mentally “corrected.”
Arthur and Margaret Glasgow Fund
robert lazzarini, 25 October 2003 - January 2004, VMFA
© Robert Lazzarini
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