Maple, Glass, and Stainless Steel
29 1/4 x 56 x 15 7/8 in. (74.30 x 142.24 x 40.48 cm)
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Women’s Committee Acquisition Fund
2013
The Explosion Cabinet is a new sculptural furniture that challenges the paradigm of Cabinet conception.
The Explosion is one of the centerpieces of Sebastian Errazuriz: Look Again, his first Solo Museum exhibition at the Carnegie Museum Of Art. It is, according to exhibition curator Rachel Delphia, “a masterwork of contemporary furniture design and craftsmanship.”
Inactivated, Explosion sits as a tidy, beautiful credenza. Transparent glass sidewalls provide a glimpse inside this intriguing but staid box. Further exploration of the central vertical seam reveals an entirely different object: With a gentle push, the rails slide further and further open until it seems that the cabinet has exploded beyond the bounds of stability.
It is “a beautiful, surprising, and confounding work that represents the playful conceit of the master cabinetmaker showing off,” added Delphia.
Even as Explosion’s exterior expands outward, it retains beautiful geometric proportions, using mechanics so complex that they took more than a year to perfect, despite borrowing one of cabinetmaking’s oldest tricks, the sliding dovetail.
It is “a beautiful, surprising, and confounding work that represents the playful conceit of the master cabinetmaker showing off,” added Delphia.
Even as Explosion’s exterior expands outward, it retains beautiful geometric proportions, using mechanics so complex that they took more than a year to perfect, despite borrowing one of cabinetmaking’s oldest tricks, the sliding dovetail.
