neil cummings

the enthusiast has the same relationship to capital as the gift to the commodity

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Recently hosted on the magnificent resource Reading Design

this short text was first published by Architectural Design, Vol 72 No 4, entitled Furniture + Architecture guest-edited by Edwin Heathcote, July 2002

Look at me, look at me, look at me

It was the design historian Reyner Banham who coined the phrase ‘furniturization’. He was writing in the seminal catalogue for Modern Chairs 1918-1970 an exhibition at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in the summer of 1970. Banham evolved the phrase to describe a change that he recognized in the material world. A change in how previously unselfconscious and virtually invisible domestic artifacts – essentially the bibelot of everyday life; like chairs, taps, cuttlery, doorhandles, etc - had suddenly become great design objects that demanded attention. Previously humble things were growing vast promotional superstructures that meshed beautifully with the rise of a culture of retail, celebrity and promotion.

Aphasic Disturbance

Exhibition curated by Stephen Bury. 19th January - 19th February 2011

I have two publications in the exhibition, the first, LOOT is from 1992

I had an exhibition of sculptures at the Cabinet Gallery, in London. They consisted of a series of re-made objects which ranged from classic Melodi Ikea shelving -like a Robert Morris artwork- Rietveld's prototype of the Red and Blue chair, a Picasso Still Life and a door, amongst other things. They were all made from recycled cardboard, and some laminated with appropriate finishes, like wood veneers or reflective plastic. I was interested in different economies of value and how they intersect and overlap with categories of objecthood.........

For the duration of the exhibition, every day I placed the sculptures for sale in LOOT magazine, a vast pre-digital market of second-hand artifacts so that they could circulate amongst other things, other structures of evaluation. Each day they came into contact with different things.

Every week I collected six copies of LOOT, ringed the sculptures for sale with a pen - a common gesture to suggest interest - and collated them into a bespoke slip-case. These gathered publications became the catalogue for the exhition. I was thinking about curatorial practices and strategies of collecting even as I was fabricating things.