Ron Arad
"Narrow Papardelle" Chair

"Narrow Papardelle" Chair

© 1992 Ron Arad and Associates Ltd

"Narrow Papardelle" Chair
"Narrow Papardelle" Chair
DesignerIsraeli, born 1951
ManufacturerItalian, active 1994–1999
CultureIsraeli
Titles
  • "Narrow Papardelle" Chair
DateDesigned 1992, made 1994
PlaceItaly
MediumStainless steel and steel
Dimensions42 × 16 × 118 1/8 in. (106.7 × 40.6 × 300 cm)

Credit LineMuseum purchase funded by the Sealy Family Trust, by exchange
Object number98.525
Non exposé

Explore Further

Object Type
Description

Ron Arad is renowned for furniture that incorporates industrial materials with a language of volume and sinuous line. Since the beginning of his career, Arad has designed his furniture using steel, a material attractive to him for its surface, minimalism, strength, and ability to be contorted by pressure or fire. All of his early furniture was created by hand; he purposefully avoided the effects of machine tooling.


Influenced by artists and architects ranging from Marcel Duchamp and the Surrealists to Marcel Breuer, Jean Prouvé, and the group Archigram, Arad first rose to prominence in the early 1980s. When he began serial production of his furniture later in the decade, he introduced controlled manufacturing flaws so that each chair would be subtly different.


 By 1992, Arad introduced woven steel wire to his designs, allowing him to create undulating forms that were more fluid. Narrow Paparadelle chair, a version of his earlier London Paparadelle, is one of these works. The design emphasizes the flexible nature of the material through its soft, rolling curves that are reinforced at the edges by steel, which gives the form enough strength to be functional. The rolled portion of the mesh can also be used as a foot rest.


 


Provenance[Haus London Ltd., London]; purchased by MFAH, 1998.
Exhibition History"Ron Arad Retrospective," Royal College of Art, London, Fall, 1998.

"Design of Our Time," Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, February 25–May 13, 2001.

"Mood River," Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio, February 2–May 26, 2002.

"Ron Arad: No Discipline," Museum of Modern Art, New York, August 2–October 19, 2009.

"Liquid Lines: Exploring the Language of Contemporary Metal," Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, March 7–July 18, 2010.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
The chair is signed (scratched/engraved in the metal) at the upper proper right outside edge: R Arad 2/94.

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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