Objet D’Art: Black Knight Vacuum
Every month, Interview picks an artist or designer created object that straddles the line between aesthetics and function. Subdued tastes need not apply.
Devised by Antwerp-based firm Studio Job, “Chess Piece” is a Swarovski crystal-studded black knight fused with a functional vacuum cleaner. The designers imagined the piece as an homage to Jeff Koons: “A European follow up to Koons’s vacuum cleaners mixed with a celebration of iconic industrial modernism,” explain Nynke and Job Smeets, Studio Job’s co-founders. Along with televisions, refrigerators and other gadgets, vacuum cleaners heralded an era of accessible home technology post-World War II. The foreboding black knight chess piece salutes the power and persistence of machines (for better or for worse, perhaps). The horse head itself is made of polished bronze or brass alloy, which are materials in Hoover Vacuum Cleaners, the oldest vacuum cleaner brand. When it’s powered on, the eyes glow a menacing red, and it periodically snorts.
Priced at $51,000, “Chess Piece” is a limited edition of four. It is one of 100 objects chosen or designed by Studio Job for the debut collection of Chamber, a new gallery-retail shop in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan.
CURATED BY STUDIO JOB, THE FIRST COLLECTION FOR CHAMBER WILL BE AVAILABLE BEGINNING WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2014. FOR MORE ON CHAMBER, VISIT THEIR WEBSITE.
Objet D’Art runs every month. For more, click here.
