LAUSANNE.- mudac is hosting one of the world’s largest private collections of chairs by artists, designers, and architects. This collection, initiated in the 1990s, is full of original seating designs, and its owner, Thierry Barbier-Mueller, has taken the step of exhibiting it to the public after more than 20 years of secret passion.

The presentation of this rich and diversified corpus — 211 chairs and 168 designers — was entrusted to the famous American director Robert Wilson, who imagined a set design borrowed from the repertoire of performing arts. The quality of this ensemble is unique and goes far beyond the usual typology of chairs: innovative research and formal designs, the use and assembly of experimental materials, and the interplay of scale and function characterise the bountiful collection. To unveil and pay tribute to each of them, Wilson appropriates and develops the semantic capacity of the object to tell stories without words. Immersive and spectacular, this exhibition reads like a vast opera in four acts. Light and sound amplify the dramaturgy of the narrative by confronting visitors with this iconic object.

The Thierry Barbier-Mueller Collection

At the crossroads of art and sculpture, the chair embodies tension between aesthetics and use, a form of musicality whose range of possibilities is infinite. Thierry Barbier- Mueller’s acquisitions grew spontaneously as he met and discovered new designers until the chairs became a fully-fledged collection of more than 650 pieces from the 1960s to the present day. Consisting of about two-thirds unique pieces, prototypes, or works from limited editions, the collection reflects this interest in atypical objects, outside the usual niches of industrial design. Far from the idea of putting together an exhaustive, scientific corpus on the contemporary history of the chair, Barbier-Mueller is interested in everything that emerges as unique and new in the field. This collection brings together the work of internationally renowned designers, as well as young, little- known designers of all nationalities.

The exhibition A Chair and You offers a glimpse of this collection of original objects that represent a history of contemporary design.

A catalogue documenting the entire chair collection is available in the museum bookshop: The Spirit of the Chair. The Chair Collection of Thierry Barbier-Mueller, October 2022, Lars Mueller Publishers GmbH, 384 pages, 927 illustrations, 22x30cm, CHF 65.

Scenography by Robert Wilson

To underline the sculptural character of the elements of the Thierry Barbier-Mueller collection, the great American director and artist Robert Wilson was entrusted with the scenography. This exceptional scenography plunges the public into immersive worlds where the chairs are treated as the protagonists of a performing arts show. Sound, light and sets provide a unique way to discover the iconic design object that is the chair and its many variations.

Born in Waco, Texas, Wilson is among the world’s foremost theatre and visual artists. His works for the stage unconventionally integrate a wide variety of artistic media, including dance, movement, lighting, sculpture, music and text. His images are aesthetically striking and emotionally charged, and his productions have earned the acclaim of audiences and critics worldwide.

After being educated at the University of Texas and Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute, Wilson founded the New York-based performance collective The Byrd Hoffman School of Byrds in the mid-1960s, and developed his first signature works, including Deafman Glance (1970) and A Letter for Queen Victoria (1974-1975). With Philip Glass he wrote the seminal opera Einstein on the Beach (1976).

Wilson’s artistic collaborations include many writers and musicians such as Heiner Müller, Tom Waits, Susan Sontag, Laurie Anderson, William Burroughs, Lou Reed, Jessye Norman and Anna Calvi. He has also left his imprint on masterworks such as Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape, Brecht/Weill’s Threepenny Opera, Debussy’s Pelléas et Melisande, Goethe’s Faust, Homer’s Odyssey, Jean de la Fontaine’s Fables, Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, Verdi’s La Traviata and Sophocles’ Oedipus.

Wilson’s drawings, paintings and sculptures have been presented around the world in hundreds of solo and group exhibitions, and his works are held in private collections and museums throughout the world.

Wilson has been honoured with numerous awards for excellence, including a Pulitzer Prize nomination, two Premio Ubu awards, the Golden Lion of the Venice Biennale, and an Olivier Award. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as the German Academy of the Arts, and holds eight Honorary Doctorate degrees. France pronounced him Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters (2003) and Officer of the Legion of Honour (2014); Germany awarded him the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit (2014). Wilson is the founder and Artistic Director of The Watermill Centre, a laboratory for the Arts in Water Mill, New York.