- Manufacturer
- Unilabor
Brazil, São Paulo, 1954-1967 - Title
- Chair
- Date Made
- 1954
- Medium
- Iron, upholstery
- Dimensions
- 32 3/4 × 15 3/4 × 18 1/4 in. (83.19 × 40.01 × 46.36 cm)
- Accession Number
- M.2021.40.1.3
- Collecting Area
- Latin American Art
- Curatorial Notes
Geraldo de Barros was a pioneer of Brazilian Concrete art, photography, and design. In 1954, he cofounded the utopian cooperative Unilabor on the outskirts of São Paulo to build modern furniture designs through serial production and collective decision making. This iron frame chair was Unilabor’s signature design and reflects de Barros’s guiding interest in geometry. The four legs form the outline of a cube, while the linear back emphasizes the chair’s verticality. De Barros was also a pivotal figure in the history of modern photography in Brazil. In his abstracted photographs of the Unilabor chair, its angular lines become the basis of geometric constructions (see M.2021.34.1 and M.2021.34.2).
A founding member of the Grupo Ruptura, which was formed in São Paulo in 1952 to promote geometric abstraction, de Barros’s interests in Concrete art and Gestalt theory (which privileges the whole over its parts) extended across his multidisciplinary practice. Following an exhibition of his groundbreaking photographs at the Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand in January 1951, he received a fellowship to travel to Europe to further his studies. There he encountered Max Bill (1908–1994) and the Hochschule für Gestaltung (School of Design) in Ulm, which proved foundational for the development of his own ideas of Concrete art and design.
Rachel Kaplan
2024
- Copyright
- © Geraldo de Barros
