Guest Post : A conversation between Liang Luscombe & Charlie Sofo concerning furniture today.

There was that project from Learning To Love You More in which you made a paper replica of your bed. These are some images from that project:


Anne Farrell

Gwendolyn

I remember I once made a zine about free furniture - the furniture that I made was always made from milk crates.



Chris told me yesterday for the Zero show he thinks he will show all the furniture that he has been given or found that is in his studio - I realised all in the furniture in my studio is also free.



My studio is full of found furniture. My house is full of found furniture! It’s interesting how we manage to cobble together our lives like this from the ruins of modern day Melbourne.

An archeology of furniture: I once had an idea for a show called 100 Chairs. The show entailed cruising around Melbourne collecting abandoned chairs and then taking them back to the workshop to be fixed and improved. My idea was that people could come collect these chairs from the gallery, take them home and use them. It would invoke the ready-made and the entire lineage of chairs in modern art. Yet, the intention of show would be an acknowledgment of the necessity of the chair, it’s usefulness and simplicity and it’s enduring, humble presence in our lives.



My bed has two really special quilts on it; one my mum made and one was made by a great aunt that I never knew.




This is a pillow that is on my bed, it is for Ed.


On my bed is a special blue blanket, one of the the only things I’ve kept from my childhood. It’s small and features a blue woven pattern.


(I also have a special extra pillow, that I keep for friends that sleep over.)

I have a chair in my room that I have only sat in once.



Bed (1955), by Robert Rauschenberg is perhaps one of my favourite bed artworks. I’ve only just realised how much influence this work has had on me.



My friend Joni found this advertisement, it’s for a bed that has my name.



On Friday you spoke of the ground as furniture - I couldn’t stop thinking of picnics.



The ground is perhaps our first and last bed. In traditional Japanese culture, people slept on futons, which are thin cotton or woollen mattresses, placed directly on tatami mats.


(Source: http://samurai-teacher.blogspot.com/)

I am obsessed with abandoned mattresses. Near my studio, there is a house where an old man used to live. One day the old man disappeared and all of his belongings were put into a big skip out the front of this house. Soon after, I noticed the beds from his house were lying on his front porch.


(Most people end up dying in beds. Personally, I’ve died a few times.)

Furniture isn’t silent, it can make sounds when you use it. Not only are human forms indelibly pressed upon the mattress, but their movement is described in sounds produced by the bed’s structure; the slats, the mattress, the bed head, the legs and the base. The bed is an instrument. The chair squeaks as it accepts your weight and the cup sings as it touches the table.