SEATING ARRANGEMENTS
Amie Siegel’s 40-minute art film Provenance traces the history of the simple, wood-framed, leather-cushioned chairs, tables and stools that furnished the capitol buildings of Chandigarh, India in the 1950’s. They were designed by the buildings’ architects, Le Corbusier and Charles Jeanneret, with mid-century modern stylings that are, today, incredibly fashionable. The film shows us these pieces (battered, broken, scratched) in place in the government buildings, in the French workshops where they are taken (not without protest) to be restored, and, finally, in the lofts, townhouses and yachts where they land after they are sold through international auction houses, for tens of thousands of dollars each.
As the film’s title implies, the pieces carry considerable aura. Each one was cataloged in Chandigarh with a unique number that’s hand-painted in a florid script, in white paint, on its side. During the refinishing process these numbers are preserved to attest to their authenticity. But after their frames are stripped and stained and their upholstery remade, how “authentic” are they? Slipper chairs originally covered in orange and blue leather are remade in crushed white linen for a loft in Antwerp and pony-printed cow hide for a house in the Hamptons. Wouldn’t it be simpler and cheaper (and more ethical, too) to simply reproduce the pieces?
In the movie we see unused chairs and tables in Chandigarh piled, uncovered, in storage spaces and on the roofs of the buildings. There are couches whose upholstery has been patched with duct tape, chairs whose legs have split and been nailed hastily back together, and tables whose tops are burned from coffee cups. It’s sad that they’re being spirited away for western collectors. And sadder still that they weren’t treasured by their original owners.
