Newsletter – August 2022 – vol.238
The Japanese craftsmanship behind the
Peter Zumthor collection vol.1
The furniture collection, “Peter Zumthor collection” created by the collaboration between architect Peter Zumthor and Time & Style, is manufactured by Japanese artisans using local materials and techniques.
Valserliege
Valserliege is a chaise longue designed for a spa facility, Therme Vals, one of Peter Zumthor’s greatest masterpieces. To provide enough strength as a piece of furniture while showcasing the beauty of the organic curves and facilitating future maintenance, we adopted a traditional steam bending technique to use solid wood.
The process introduced to Japan about a hundred years ago has been passed down without much alteration to the process until today. Every step of the process, including steaming each wood piece and bending it along the metal jig created by metal mould artisans, is done manually.
Valserliege, initially introduced in the completion of Therme Vals in 1996, is beautifully replicated after more than 25 years through our unique manufacturing method.
Serpentine table and Serpentine stool
The Serpentine Gallery is a small art museum in Kensington Gardens, London, where world-renowned architects and artists are invited to create a temporary pavilion every year.
In 2011, Peter Zumthor participated in the project and designed a sequence that passes through a dark corridor enclosed by black walls that leads to a beautiful courtyard filled with flora. The Serpentine table and Serpentine stool were placed around the courtyard.
The products are not over-decorated, and the production process is an integral part of the design. Although with a straightforward composition made of metal, the round edge of the tabletop allows the product to give a softer impression, while the flatness of the surface is so precise that it does not give away its manufacturing process. All are the result of fine-tuning by the acute sense of human hands.
Time & Style Midtown will present the work of Kazutoshi Shimuta in the upcoming exhibition “ART IN TIME & STYLE MIDTOWN VOL. 22: Torso on the Box.”
Making a torso with the shape that is created by stacking six cases on three levels (two cases each) is an idea I’ve had for around ten years. I drew pictures and refined the images, and tried making them three-dimensional using various methods, but I didn’t arrive at a point where I made them works of art. The reason I held on to this idea anyway, I think, is that the image of a torso-like figure (a body that never asserts or expresses itself) is a central part of my interest in creating art.
In this work, “Torso on the Box,” the torso and the box are equally important elements. The box stores and houses the torso; it’s also a pedestal for displaying the torso. But this alone is not what gives it the same importance as the torso. The reason it’s important is that, from the beginning, I’ve envisioned an exhibition in which the torso is in a contained state. What does this mean?
Compared to the torso being placed on a box (i.e., pedestal), I think a situation where the torso is contained inside a box is more likely to inspire visitors—and me—to imagine a slightly wider world around the work. And I think this can lead people to reflect on the possibilities of other places and times, and on other ways of being. By making this the landing point, I was finally able to turn the torso into a work of art.
For this exhibition, on the other hand, the venue already has furniture on display, so I didn’t think it was appropriate for that method and decided not to use it. With regard to the state of storage in boxes, I used “11 Torsos in the Boxes” in the direct mail photo. Previously I’ve carried out this method of displaying torsos that are stored in boxes numerous times, as part of the series of works called “pious colors.”
(Kazutoshi Shimuta)
Tokyo • Hokkaido • Osaka • Amsterdam • Milan
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