In Pictures: Check out artist Tom Sachs’ raw furniture made from everyday materials, now on display in Chicago

Early in his career, Tom Sachs built a Knoll office installation out of phone books and duct tape. For the past three decades, the New York-based artist has continued to use everyday materials to recreate icons of consumerism as mixed-media sculptures (a foam-core Hello Kitty; a McDonald’s made of plywood, glue, and kitchenware).

He has also made his own line of furniture.

Now the subject of an exhibition in the United States for the first time in over 20 years, Theaster Gates’ Rebuild Foundation presents “Tom Sachs: Furniture” in partnership with the Anthony Gallery at Stony Island Arts Bank in south Chicago (through September 4, 2022 ).

From a latex-covered maple-plywood sofa with Spinneybeck leather cushions to a foldable NASA chair with signs of wear (each flew astronauts to Mars via New York’s Park Avenue Armory in 2012), Sachs’ designs are a natural extension of his art practice – that is, with traces of its handwork (joints, screws, any and all imperfections) on display.

“I want work to be the focus, because everything in our lives is miraculously made without knowing how it’s done,” the artist once said paper magazine of his work. “If we know how it’s made and how it falls apart, we know how to rebuild it.”

Sachs has a workshop in North Carolina with Stokes Manufacturing that makes its furniture in open editions. Each piece is numbered on a hand-engraved plate.

Below is a selection of images from Tom Sachs: Furniture.

Photo: Samuel Kfare.

Photo: Samuel Kfare.

Photo: Samuel Kfare.

Photo: Samuel Kfare.

Photo: Samuel Kfare.

Photo: Samuel Kfare.

Photo: Samuel Kfare.

Photo: Samuel Kfare.

Photo: Samuel Kfare.

Follow Artnet News on Facebook:


Want to stay one step ahead of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest news, insightful interviews and incisive critical statements that drive the conversation.