the outsider / the insider

ESSENCE can be an elusive quality. ‘The Outsider/The Insider’ consists of two chairs in one. ‘The Insider’ is a slender white chair cast in white concrete, with detailing that is reduced to the absolute minimum. While ‘The Insider’ strives for a purified ideal, ‘The Outsider’ represents the complexities of potential. Its fragmented form comprises the wooden shuttering in which ‘The Insider’ is cast.

In contrast to the slender white ‘Insider’, the ‘Outsider’ is structurally elaborate and detailed, with its soft wooden exterior and hard casting interior surfaces, its segmented shapes and its multiple hinges. ‘The Outsider’ is constructed to be un-folded and opened up, thus slowly revealing ‘The Insider’ in stages –  in a form of undressing.

The Outsider / The Insider invites reflection upon the enormous complexity and energy needed to convey an appearance of simplicity.

the outsider/the insider (2010)
44cm x 44cm x 101cm
concrete, oak, brass, high gloss paint
2 reinforced concrete-cast chairs with hinged casting formwork
photos by jeppe gudmundsen and stamers kontor

View associated writings page:

ESSENCE

“Now, if they could talk to one another, would they not suppose that their words referred only to those passing shadows which they saw?”.

– Plato

“Plato explores these ideas in his discussion of “The Allegory of the Cave”. A simpler way of understanding this metaphor is understood with the idea of “chairness”. For example, the “form” or “idea” of a chair is intelligible, abstract, and applies to all chairs. This Form never changes, even though chairs vary to a great degree – the Form of a chair would never change even if every chair in the world were to vanish.”

– Elizabeth R. Schroeder