Meet the world’s most interesting chairs

A forthcoming selling exhibition at Christie’s Beverly Hills promises to bring together 50 of the most interesting chairs in Los Angeles. Their materials span antlers, steel, balloons, cardboard boxes, and resin.

50 Chairs at Christie’s includes famous and unique designs as well as chairs that have had famous former owners. They’re colorful and unconventional—and a reminder that even the most basic piece of furniture can always be reinvented and reimagined.

The exhibition is being put on in partnership with the marketplace Basic.Space, which curated the collection. The chairs will be viewable by appointment at Christie’s Beverly Hills from September 25 to 30.

“These pieces are not united by a particular style or period—and they aren’t a group you’d usually see together,” Basic.Space founder and CEO Jesse Lee tells Fast Company. “They’re united by being 50 of the most interesting chairs from around the world, come together under one roof, offering a new way to buy design.”

Lee adds: “Some pieces are ‘collectible,’ while others are more commercial, but they’re all authentically unique and interesting.”

The eclectic offerings include an Eames LCW by Charles and Ray Eames in a rare cowhide that was contributed by the Eames Foundation, and the Gufram Pratone, a green armchair designed in 1971 to look like grass, contributed by the L.A. studio BASA.

Fashion designer Rick Owens crafted a Stag Stool made with an actual moose antler, and designer Kelly Wearstler, who recently launched a collection for H&M Home, contributed a hammered-brass chair by Philippe Hiquily.

The Teamwork Chair by Playlab Inc. is a nonfunctional sculpture until two people sit on it to establish equal weight balance. Chair No. 2 by Joseph Santiago-Dieppa is made from steel vertical supports with spheres on the ends.

Several of the pieces are made from unusual materials, like the blue Lounge Chair 01 by SeungJin Yang, which is made from actual balloons and resin. The Box Chair by Illya Goldman Gubin is made from a cardboard box and resin.

A full list of the chairs is still to come, but Basic.Space says it curated the sale from its network of designers, creatives, collectors, galleries, and others, and the 50 chairs it selected are meant to suggest an ethos that mixes iconic designs with original work shaping the future of design.

“It’s an exhibition for the next generation of design enthusiasts, who want to discover the most interesting pieces from the icons of the past and the designers shaping what’s new,” Lee says.

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