TIMELESS OBJECTS BY BOYM PARTNERS (2009)
From Boym Partners:
Amidst a flurry of new trends, yearly promoted by mass media, there exists an often-voiced desire for timeless everlasting values, for design described as permanent and archetypal.
Our new collection Timeless Objects attempts to make the pieces as timeless as ancient bronze monuments.
Inside each piece there is “a found object”: either a disposable item or an anonymous thing culled from the mundane texture of our everyday life. Once we apply our special treatment, the familiar shapes start to look and feel like bronze sculpture. Trivial objects suddenly look permanent and essential. Are these pieces brand-new, or have they been made long time ago? We imagine objects that defy time and obsolescence, things that withstand fluctuations of trends and style.
In line with the Boyms’ earlier projects, such as Recycle (1989), Searstyle (1992-94), or Salvation Ceramics (2000-02), we aspire to redeem conventional objects from oblivion and neglect, to give them new value and another life.
Making Timeless Objects has required a great deal of time and experimentation. The material is applied over the surfaces of the objects with our own proprietory technique. All pieces are made by hand at our studio, in a limited edition. Each object literally carries the fingerprints of its maker. Created for Moss Gallery in New York in 2006, Constantin Boym’s Ultimate Art Furniture series transforms reproductions of Old Master paintings taken from Laurene Boym’s mother’s collection by turning them into physical furniture. Painted canvases are cut, folded, and literally shapeshifted into chairs, tables, and even small benches.
Rather than elevating furniture into art, Boym Partners quite literally turn art into furniture. The resulting forms only appear to be delicate as they are entirely functional - chairs can support an individual with ease.
Amidst a flurry of new trends, yearly promoted by mass media, there exists an often-voiced desire for timeless everlasting values, for design described as permanent and archetypal.
Our new collection Timeless Objects attempts to make the pieces as timeless as ancient bronze monuments.
Inside each piece there is “a found object”: either a disposable item or an anonymous thing culled from the mundane texture of our everyday life. Once we apply our special treatment, the familiar shapes start to look and feel like bronze sculpture. Trivial objects suddenly look permanent and essential. Are these pieces brand-new, or have they been made long time ago? We imagine objects that defy time and obsolescence, things that withstand fluctuations of trends and style.
In line with the Boyms’ earlier projects, such as Recycle (1989), Searstyle (1992-94), or Salvation Ceramics (2000-02), we aspire to redeem conventional objects from oblivion and neglect, to give them new value and another life.
Making Timeless Objects has required a great deal of time and experimentation. The material is applied over the surfaces of the objects with our own proprietory technique. All pieces are made by hand at our studio, in a limited edition. Each object literally carries the fingerprints of its maker. Created for Moss Gallery in New York in 2006, Constantin Boym’s Ultimate Art Furniture series transforms reproductions of Old Master paintings taken from Laurene Boym’s mother’s collection by turning them into physical furniture. Painted canvases are cut, folded, and literally shapeshifted into chairs, tables, and even small benches.
Rather than elevating furniture into art, Boym Partners quite literally turn art into furniture. The resulting forms only appear to be delicate as they are entirely functional - chairs can support an individual with ease.
SELECTED OBJECTS
Chair
A found chair is completely enveloped by the Boyms' bronze-like surface. Its recognizable form remains intact while nearly every clue to its age, manufacturer, and original material disappears, leaving behind only the essential silhouette of a chair.
Wall Mirror
An imagined archeological past is imposted onto a readymade mirror. The proprietary material creeps onto the surface as if it is slowly moving inwards from the edges.
Meta Souvenirs
A reproduction of Paolo Veronese’s Mars and Venus United by Love (c. 1570s) is divided between a chair and wall mirror. The painting depicts Cupid binding together Venus, goddess of love, and Mars, god of war; Boym extends this act of joining into the objects themselves, fragmenting one image across two functional pieces. The chair and mirror exist as an inseperable pair.
Rock
A stone is given the same surface treatment as the Boyms’ manufactured objects, transforming something already ancient and effectively “timeless” into a meta representation of permanence. The result is both metaphor and joke: a rock made to look more like a rock that has survived history.IN CONCLUSION:
Timless Objects uses a similar methodology to other projects by the Boyms, taking something pre-existing and making it new. The material developed to coat objects removes their inner form and identity while encasing it forever. The object is memorialized and forgotten all at once. Constantin Boym’s favorite piece from the series was the wine bottle because of the symbolic and timeless nature itself of the vessel for a liquid.
