During the Salone del Mobile, Dutch artists Lernert & Sander will launch a new series of office furniture that pays homage to the dullness of office life and the universal symbol of boredom: the crumpled paper ball.
According to the press release: The Boring Collection does not pretend to be more beautiful than other furniture. In fact, it is just the opposite. Down to the last detail, the pieces, including chairs, tables and clocks, will have a modest, uniform soft grey finish, and their shapes will be archetypical, straightforward and discrete. “The collection has only one goal: to draw the eye to the things that actually matter…. because it’s not about the furniture.”
The tongue-in-check collection was conceived by Dutch brand Lensvelt, the Amsterdam architectural studio Space Encounters, together with the artists Lernert & Sander, known for their high-conceptual art films and keen fashion aesthetic. They describe the installation as being not about furniture: “It’s really about office life and the tedious countdown to the last minute before five o’clock. It is also ode to the paper wad – the universal symbol for boredom.” Lensvelt has described the collection as a comment on the “ugly” appearance of affordable contract furniture and the distracting designs being added to some workplaces in the wake of the Google office aesthetic.
The Boring Collection will be presented with a 13-minute film where office workers attempt to throw a ball of crumpled paper into the trash can until the clock turns five. It will also include an installation on view April 12 to 17 at Ventura Lambrate (via Privata Oslavia 1) where the collection will be placed in a circle, like a clock, and surrounded by a landscape of 150,000 leaflets about the collection that have been crumpled into paper balls.