{"id":531,"date":"2025-09-19T17:00:50","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T17:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.classicsofabed.com\/?p=531"},"modified":"2025-09-23T09:50:24","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T09:50:24","slug":"colin-knight-exhibition-explores-troubling-connections-between-mid-century-design-and-world-war-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.classicsofabed.com\/index.php\/2025\/09\/19\/colin-knight-exhibition-explores-troubling-connections-between-mid-century-design-and-world-war-two\/","title":{"rendered":"Colin Knight exhibition explores “troubling connections” between mid-century design and world war two"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Colin<\/div>\n

Designer Colin Knight has presented an exhibition<\/a> of conceptual furniture called Hero’s Wreck at Superhouse Gallery in New York<\/a> with materials and symbols relating to world war two, including a piece based on the Eames<\/a> glider chair prototype.<\/span><\/p>\n

Virginia-based designer Knight<\/a>, created the exhibition at Superhouse Gallery<\/a> as a conceptual story between a fictional British fighter pilot and an actual Nazi pilot, Joseph Beuys, experiencing different stages of war.<\/p>\n

\"Colin
Colin Knight has showcased a conceptual furniture collection at Superhouse in New York<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The story is told in a series of leather panels that were displayed on the wall of the Tribeca gallery.<\/p>\n

It references complicated mid-century design and art legacies, such as Beuys’ participation in the Nazi air force before his career as an artist and the leveraging of mid-century modern design talents such as Charles and Ray Eames for the war effort.<\/p>\n

\"Colin
Hero’s Wreck follows a semi-fictional story of two fighter pilots<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“One of the more subtle underlying narratives shows the ultimately direct and troubling connections between mid-century design and world war two,” Knight told Dezeen.<\/p>\n

“When wartime manufacturing hit full steam in the early 1940s, many furniture manufacturers gained military contracts to begin producing objects such as weapons, gear, and aviation components,” he continued.<\/p>\n

“With new manufacturing abilities and worker skillsets gained after the war, furniture production and designs were heavily influenced, especially with materials such as plywood, fiberglass and aluminum.”<\/p>\n

\"Colin
It includes the Pilot’s Seat reading chair<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The most explicit reference to this dynamic is Knight’s Pilot’s Seat reading chair, a direct reference to the Eames prototype for a lightweight, moulded-plywood seat for an engineless glider<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It features a wall divider shaped like the hull of a plane and a reading lamp resembling a gun turret.<\/p>\n

“While the piece symbolizes the characters call to adventure\/journey into war, the piece explores an unhealthy and unrealistic romanticization of war as a heroic conflict,” said Knight.<\/p>\n

“I see the characters\/user sitting in the chair, imagining seeing the world and travel in planes, while in reality they will face the horrors of world war two.”<\/p>\n

\"Colin
It focuses on the world war two career of artist Joseph Beuys<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

All of the pieces in the exhibition are functional, a constraint decided on by Knight and gallerist Stephen Markos so that the “comfort and functionality in the work helps break them out of any ‘gallery setting only'”, according to Knight.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Other pieces in the exhibition include a hanging lamp with rice paper shade created in the shape of a wing and an aluminium-and-leather chair in the shape of a liferaft.<\/p>\n

As well as, a chair in the shape of a stretcher, a shed that represents the different phases of Beuy’s actual survival of a plane crash in Crimea and a bleached maple table that showcases tableware adorned with symbols representing the characters and their “rebirth” after the war.<\/p>\n