Details

Title

Heavenly Victory

Artist/Maker

John Cederquist (American, born 1946), designer and maker (American, born 1946)

Date

2007

Medium

Various wood and inks

Dimensions

70 x 54 x 19 inches

Credit

Purchase with funds through prior acquisition from Mr. and Mrs. Carl W. Knobloch, Jr., bequest of Mrs. Norman Powell Pendley, Thom Daniels, and partial gift of the artist

Accession #

2008.2

On View

Currently not on view

This marquetry cabinet by furniture maker John Cederquist attests to the continuing vitality of the American studio craft tradition in the twenty-first century. By giving precedence to visual imagery and pictorial flatness over three-dimensional form, Cederquist challenges the modernist dictum of “form follows function.” Drawing on the art of origami and, in the case of this kosode (a kind of basic Japanese robe) cabinet, Cederquist recalls traditional folding practices in which three-dimensional forms emerge from flat materials. He plays a game between actual and illusory surface, where graphic clues conceal the true use and function of his furniture. Only by interacting with the cabinet and breaking the plane of illusion does one discover the drawers and compartments concealed within the piece.

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