Uriel Miron (*1968) is a Tel Aviv based painter and sculptor who worked with Monobloc chairs in variuos objects. I came across his work earlier this summer via Elad Armon´s blog and Elad was so nice to get the both of us in touch. Why the Monobloc, I asked Uriel and he emailed:

I was first drawn to work with plastic chairs because of their integral stacking structure – the fact that each chair was designed not only to receive the sitter’s body but also another chair – making the fellow chairs analogous to a sitting body. Another point that fascinated me was that a stack of chairs, no matter how tall (or long) is always, in a way, one chair (because only four legs touch the ground and only one seat is exposed – at the top). The chair’s ubiquity and humble commodity status was also important for me.

My favourite work would definitely be “String Theory” (2008) for which Uriel Miron cut away most of the chair, leaving only the outline and then re-arranged these string-like leftovers into an entirely new form that bears only little resemblance with the original resource. Still the bend and tortured Monobloc from which the work departed remains strikingly visible.

Interestingly, “String Theory” strongly reminds me of shiki bocho, the Japanese art of super-complexly cutting a fish without touching it.

The first monobloc work of Uriel´s however was “Nur Oyf Simkhes” (2006) – a Yiddish expression meaning “only on happy occasions” – used on unhappy occasions as if to wish, “may we meet only on happy occasions”, as Uriel informed me.

This Libeskind-esque take of the Mono is my fav work making use of the chair´s stackability. Piled up, elaborately twisted, re-formed and inclined these two unconnected stacks of monoblocs develop some cristalline-organic impression. It´s all still clearly chairs, but combined and manipulated they are being transformed into two war wounded bee-hives at rest.

I would not be less enthused by Uriel´s most recent monobloc sculpture “Cryptozoid Skeleton” (2009) that was commissioned for the Petach Tikva Museum of Art´s “The Natural History Museum”-exhibition – if there wasn´t Brian Jungen´s seminal series of imaginary skeletons made from white plastic chairs. Although the 8 meter long piece is absolutely beautiful, intricate and amazing, I find it just a bit close, taking into account that Jungen´s work had been widely exhibited internationally and may probably count as THE inspiration to many artists that started working with monoblocs ever since. On the other hand: Why not being close as long the result is as exquisite as “Cryptozoid Skeleton”?

All images (C) Uriel Miron.

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