Broken Chair

Daniel Berset (Geneva, 1953)
Commissioned by: Handicap International

At Place des Nations, a monumental sculpture has been attracting attention from visitors to International Geneva since 1997. It is a giant chair created by artist Daniel Berset at the request of Handicap International. With its damaged, mutilated leg, it symbolizes the destruction caused by anti-personnel mines and submunition weapons. Constructed from over five tons of wood and located in front of the main entrance to the Palais des Nations, it was created to mark the signing of the 1997 Convention on the Prohibition of Anti-Personnel Mines in Ottawa. It stands as a strong message to heads of state visiting Geneva. Balancing precariously on its three remaining legs, Broken Chair represents the fragility, but also the dignity, of a civil society subject to decisions by a handful of leaders – decisions that are sometimes violent and have severe consequences. The chair motif has haunted Daniel Berset’s practice for many years. Since his first solo exhibition in Geneva in 1986, the seat has been his main theme. He sees it as a way of evoking the human figure without representing it directly. This very simple, familiar, utilitarian, universal domestic object is a metaphor and an allegory that can take on many identities, enabling the artist to raise both symbolic and tangible questions. At Place des Nations, the chair stands in for commemorative monuments of the past in order to pay tribute to victims and evoke their memory.
Article commissioned by P3Art
Notice: Séverine Fromaigeat, translation: Matthew Cunningham  

Links:  http://broken-chair.com
www.p3art.ch