4 Chairs
4 Chairs is a video from the series Stills Made in Museums which stages the behavioral rules that derive from the strange constructs which "protect" and "exhibit" art. Museum Stills explores both extremes of this behaviour, from the over-identification and even psychological breakdown that can occur in front of works of art to the practiced performance of indifference in the interstitial stairways and corners of these colossal institutions.
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"The last two stills present distinctively banal museum experiences. Here we witness the polar opposite of excessive identification: a disengaged disinterestedness. That is, museumgoers utilize the space apart from direct engagement with art. Beyond the museum's designation as a site of cultural inscription and moral instruction, it is a heterotopic public space often deployed as a time-out from the frantic pace of the city. In 4 Chairs, visitors relax in upholstered chairs poised in a compartmentalized, cruciform shape. The individuals in this alienated arrangement relate neither to each other, nor to the art. Are they distracted, dreaming, making plans, or just spacing out? Whatever their thoughts, these individuals are distinctly "alone" despite being together in public."
DROBNICK, Jim and Jennifer FISHER. "Museum vivants", Adad Hannah: Video Projects. Seoul, 2006, p. 14 [http://adadhannah.com/images/uploads/press_assets/2006_10_07_Ssamzie_Catalog.pdf] (Consulted on June 10th 2011)
Art, Museum, Observation, Immobility, Tableaux Vivants, Painting, Social Identity, Psychology, Institutions, Rules,
