Ron ARAD (né en 1951)

ARMCHAIR "NEW ORLEANS", 1999 Pigmented polyester, reinforced with gel-coated fiberglass. Signed, located, dated "Ron Arad London 99" on the back of the foot, countersigned on the right side. Extremely rare armchair, made in 1999 for Galerie Mourmans in Maastricht, produced in two series of nine copies, eighteen copies in total. Each armchair, made and decorated by the artist, is a unique piece. 94 x 135 x 85 cm. PROVENANCE. . Collection of M. R., Paris. . Collection Arlette MOCH-DAVID, Paris. Born in 1951, originally from Israel, Ron Arad moved to London in 1973 to study architecture. He quickly became one of the major figures in British design and interior architecture. His work is on the borderline between contemporary art and industrial design. He lives and works in London. The New Orleans chair series is a hybridisation, a reinterpretation, in terms of form, of the Big Easy Volume 2 series (1988-1989) and, in terms of technique, of the Pic Chairs series (1997). Ron Arad plays with the colour pigments on the gel-coated, fibreglass-reinforced polyester structure. An architect and designer, Ron Arad does not consider himself a painter. For the New Orleans series, he declares that the shapes of the paint follow the shapes imposed by the structure of the chair: "It was a question of making chairs in a mould with a coloured substance that made the surface look like a painting. [The paint was the raw material for making the chair". The colour is only an ornament. The design historian Raymond Guidot establishes a correspondence between the forms designed by Ron Arad and the Hebrew alphabet: "he uses a language of forms from the sources of Hebrew writing". It is a repertoire of forms, which would find its origin in his culture and personal history. According to the historian, the shape of the Big Easy Volume 2 chair (1988-1989) corresponds to that of the Hebrew letter Schin. The line of the shapes he creates corresponds to real calligraphic architectures. To produce this series of eighteen pieces, Ron Arad was always accompanied by a single assistant. BIBLIOGRAPHY. . Alba CAPPELLIERI, Design & Italy Ron Arad, Mondadori Arte, Milan, 2008. New Orleans armchair reproduced in colour on page 91. . Ron ARAD, Matthew COLLINGS, Ron Arad Talks to Matthew Collings, Phaidon, London, 2004. New Orleans armchairs reproduced in double page 85. . Marie-Laure JOUSSET, Sir Christopher FRAYLING and Jonathan SAFRAN FOER, Ron Arad No Discipline, catalogue of the exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2 August - 19 October 2009, organised in collaboration with the Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Centre de Création Industrielle, Paris, and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, published by the Museum of Modern Art New York, 2009 Variations of the model reproduced on page 48. . Marie-Laure JOUSSET, Sir Christopher FRAYLING and Jonathan SAFRAN FOER, Ron Arad No Discipline. Catalogue of the exhibition at the Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Éditions du Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2008. Variations of the model reproduced on pages 108, 109. . Raymond GUIDOT, Olivier BOISSIÈRE, Ron Arad, Paris, Éditions Dis Voir, 1997. Drawing by Raymond Guidot reproduced on page 29. MUSEUMS . A Big Easy Volume 2 armchair, 1988 (stainless steel structure and rustproof painted steel on the sides, 99 x 126 x 80 cm, publisher One Off / Ron Arad Associates) is kept in the collections of the Fonds National d'Art Contemporain, Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication, Paris, (inv. FNAC 05643). EXHIBITIONS . A New Orleans armchair from a private collection was presented at the Ron Arad No Discipline exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, from August 2 to October 19, 2009, organized in collaboration with the Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Centre de Création Industrielle, Paris, and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. . It was also presented in the exhibition Ron Arad No Discipline, at the Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris, from 20 November 2008 to 16 March 2009.