CHICAGO—Volume Gallery debuts the premier, limited edition collection from Rich Brilliant Willing: Pro Forma. Opening reception on March 18 from 6-8 PM at address TK.
Volume Gallery continues their ongoing series highlighting limited edition work from American contemporary designers, from March 18 thru April 3.
“For the sake of form”
In Pro Forma, their first solo exhibition of limited edition work, Rich Brilliant Willing debuts a collection comprised of a series of personal storage pieces inspired by international air-shipping containers and what RBW identifies as a transient nature in the contemporary idea of home.
Well known for their appropriation of ready-made components, Theo Richardson, Charles Brill and Alexander Williams (Rich Brilliant Willing), Pro Forma draws inspiration from the curious forms of air shipping containers, the corners of which are heavily chamfered or rounded to facilitate their fitting economically into an airplane’s curved fuselage.
With Pro Forma, Rich Brilliant Willing borrows from the archetype of globalization and transposes it onto icons of the home: the credenza, the coffee table, the bookshelf, side table and bar cabinet. By stripping the container shapes of their original context and the furniture objects of an overly specific function, a dialogue of abstraction emerges.
First and foremost, Pro Forma is a material-rich investigation. The rugged and deliberate shapes of commercial transport are tamed by the more lavish palette of home furnishing and antique luggage: brass, leather, lacquer and American hardwoods; steamer trunks in an age of global logistics.
