24/7 Gallery Presents…
Musical Chairs
An Installation by Felix Olivieri & Stefan Saffer
Opening Reception: March 8, 2025, 3-5pm
“Chairs are about status, power and control. That’s why we like them.”
– Colin McSwiggen, Academia Sinica
A collaborative exhibition from Kingston-based artists Felix Olivieri and Stefan Saffer, “Musical Chairs” is presented as the inaugural exhibition of ArtPort Kingston’s new 24/7 Gallery, which offers around-the-clock public access to rotating exhibitions via the Kingston art-center’s windowed foyer.
“Musical Chairs” presents a spectacle of sculpture, light, sound, and movement. Empty chairs are floating in the gallery box, hanging from the ceiling and colliding with each other. The golden surface of the chairs reflects light through a thick fog which occasionally fills the space, disappearing and abstracting the installation.
The installation’s three chairs represent, simultaneously, three different functions, positions, and social groups. From the chair’s perspective, any person taking a seat is represented by their buttocks, and all people are the same: the chair has no bias by which it ensures the support of its seat. Nevertheless, we have assigned, over centuries, different chair designs to different functions, ranks, and uses, starting with the throne. In his essay, “Against Chairs,” academic Colin McSwiggen writes “Not only are Chairs a health hazard, but they also have a problematic history that has inextricably tied them to our culture of status-obassed individualism.”
With “Musical Chairs,” the artists’ attempt to create a democratic view of the chairs based on their simple function stands (or hangs) in contrast to the hierarchical categorization by their users. The installation reflects this ongoing struggle for equality and power, while attempting to catalyze the impulse to rethink who we are by what chair we sit on–literally and figuratively–and who we want to sit at our table and why.
The exhibition will open with a free, public reception, coinciding with the launch of ArtPort Kingston’s Flag Pole Project, on March 8, 3-5pm at ArtYard Kingston - 80 Smith Avenue, Kingston NY 12401. Artists will be present and light refreshments will be provided. All are welcome!
