In the ruins of the future the Allen key will be as ubiquitous as stones in Pompeii. Littered amongst Fjälkingeshelving units and modular kitchens, it will stand as the Rosetta Stone for the flat pack generation. As form, function and purchasable transcendence are now fetish, what we buy may stand forever as a measure of who we are.
In Venereal Architecture, Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro use two common tools of aspiration, IKEA furniture and LEGO, to link the economy and ubiquity of IKEA’s ornamental architecture to the release and repression of sexual pleasure and desire. In a neat marriage of the two, the Lego wall works in Venereal Architecture are in fact based on found screen shots from pornos that have used IKEA furniture in their sets. The sculptural set-ups in the exhibition lead the viewer through a nuclear home: the kitchen and the breakfast bar, the study and hallway, the baby’s room and garage. In each definition of home, life sized picture book animals made from LEGO appear fused with IKEA furniture: a serpent oozes out of the hallway bureau, in an incredible and banal sculptural assemblage (made from LEGO, an IKEA changing table, a change mat and plants) an unreal LEGO lion, in saturated tones of blue red, orange and yellow, appears highly pixilated, as if it were a life size, low-resolution jpeg. These are animal urges that resist being camouflaged and instead percolate independently from “quality furniture at affordable prices.”
Until August 30th
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Paddington
Pic credit: Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro. Hallway / Rear Entrance – Snake, 2014. Lego, IKEA shelf with drawers and plant. 147 × 115 × 30cm. Courtesy of the artist and Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney.
