back

THE ROOM

a menu of possibilities

 

 THE EMPTY ROOM - 1
THE EMPTY ROOM - 2
THE EMPTY ROOM - 3
THE EMPTY ROOM - 4
THE EMPTY ROOM - BARELY POPULATED
EMPTY ROOM -THE DOMESTIC EXUBERANT
EMPTY ROOM -AMERICAN DECOR
COMPUTER ROOMS

 

ARTISTS

 GUY GLADWELL

WALTER GAY

MARVIN CONE

 

 

 Rural Houses of Japan , Yukio Futagawa 1958-1960

Les Vues de Sagan, Sotheby's 1989

IN PRAISE OF FLOORS, FIVE GALLERIES

 

VICTORIAN INTERIORS UK

POSSINGWORTH MANOR UK Victorian Interior

Interior UK 1880, Godwin, Morris and Stacy Marks

Adams, Entrance Hall with faience

Talbert, Decorations and Furniture 1869

 

 

MANIPULATED IMAGES

 Henri Monnier, Moeurs administrative 1828

FURNITURE

 KROEHLER FURNITURE

 

The spectacle of the Empty Room, show mostly in colour and exclusively American from the period 1945-1965. This is the raw material for something more ambitious on the theme of Mystery and Melancoly.

ACCESSORIES AND THEMES

BAROMETERS

TVS

TELEPHONES

CLOCKS

• the desk set, twin barrels pointed at the heart

• the fluidity of space and the lack of it

• the open door

• partitions

• a space for him and a space for her

• bringing the outside inside

• curtains, drapes and blinds

• ominous sounds

• desk and chair confound in conversation

• the family framed, the vestigials of sentiment

• empty shelves and pulsing vessels

• when does a corridor become a room?

• when does a room cease to be?

• the paw print of aliens, molecules,

• the Telephone as Crusoe

• whatever happened to the Blotter?

• ectoplasm in the Work Place

• light fittings of a feeble throw

• the smack of the briny, the niff of the littoral

• intercourse of the kneecaps

• the ashtray its own Discobolos

 

 

 THE PORCELAIN ROOM, CHARLOTTENBURG PALACE BERLIN

HOUSE AND GARDENS 1953, a Guide to Interior Decoration

WIRTH, DAS DEUTSCHES ZIMMER 1886
MYSTERY AND MELANCHOLY (CHRIS MULLEN)

MODEL ROOMS, THEBES (see also miniaturisation )

KOCH'S HANDBUCH NEUZEITLICHER WOHNUNGS-KULTUR 1924
KOCH'S 1000 IDEEN ZUR KUNSTLERISCHEN AUSGESTALTUNG DER WOHNUNG
WOLFGANG TITZENTHALER BERLINER INTERIEURS 1910-1930

DRAWN INTERIORS EUROPEAN ROOMS 1900-1920 4 IMAGES

 

SINGLES EXAMPLES OF EXCELLENCE

KROEHLER 1947
STEELCASE 1958
BRUCE TALBOT GOTHIC FORMS 1876

Indian room with hanging banners 1866
All This Desk Clutter can be eliminated 1964

built for permanence.. BANAL TILED INTERIORS, Areketex 1956

 

 

 

This a set of visual options where you can look at/into unpopulated rooms. This allows you a full scrutiny but with an uneasy feeling of Voyeurism, that you are being observed, or are about to be caught in the act. The obvious examples are Van Gogh's paintings of his own room, Luke Fildes' depiction of Dickens' work room after his death. There are some exercises in the genre by Adolph Menzel.

Wirth's illustrations manage to drain any interest out of the interiors. I constructed in book form for The House in the Middle exhibition at the Towner Art Gallery Eastbourne in 2004.The Koch books repay study and some examples have the mad intensity of Diane Keaton's Reservations book.

The Drawn Interiors show how line and wash can invent perfect inner Utopias.

 

back