Experienter presents a solo by Bani Abidi, titled Fragments From a Nightmare, at Frieze London 2024, which is a new body of drawings and photographs titled ‘Seeking comfort in a German chair’, inspired by the exercise of bringing together a body and a piece of furniture, which also reflect on the fractured political and social structures of our times. The series is titled after the centerspread ‘Seeking comfort in an uncomfortable chair’ which Italian designer Bruno Munari had designed for the architecture and design magazine ‘Domus’ in 1944. In the photographs, Abidi makes comic attempts in trying to seek comfort in various chairs. Only that the chairs in these photographs have a different connotation: they are chairs by designers associated in varying degrees with the Nazis: Egon Eiermann, Walter Knoll, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Ernst Moeckl. In addition to the topical nature of the gesture, the photographs also raise questions about early 20th-century architecture and design and its relationship with eugenics.
Know more about the show here.
