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In the use of his tools, the artist subconsciously refers to the child whittling a twig with his penknife, carving figures that provide a solid form for daydream ing. Buedts is a lucid romantic, free of any Schwärmerei (rapture) or rhetoric, remaining as he does within the walls of an internal humility. Art & Furniture Buedts gained fame with the furniture-like construc tions he called ‘furniture things’. On closer inspection of these furniture things, Gerrit Rietveld’s Red Blue Chair (1923) can be seen as an iconic artefact.8 The famous chair, of which an unpainted prototype already existed in 1918, was an attempt to find an answer to the question of the place sculpture could occupy in the new, modern interior. The effect of Rietveld’s chair was enormous, as if no one had ever made a chair before. Its essence is the breaking up of a closed volume with supporting horizontal and vertical ribs that virtually continue into infinity. The unpainted, rough-looking prototype of 1918 served as a reference point for Buedts. The structural ambivalence and the surprising and entirely new dimension of Rietveld’s chair – more sculp
Wim Van Mulders
ture than furniture – is also a recurring feature of the furniture objects. The furniture objects resemble wornout, battered furniture with a bizarre, contrary function ality. They constitute a whimsical answer to Mies van der Rohe’s statement that “function determines form”. Buedts built tables, chairs, pianos, desks and benches in a fanciful manner. You will also find wooden couches in Brancusi’s work, which were used in the studio. For Brancusi, the functional objects were of equal value to the sculptures, as they had a common commitment and inspiration. Buedts was no different. The changing utility of the furniture objects – some times they invite you to sit, at others they are objects of art that ultimately demand a strange distance – poses many riddles to the observer. This problem in the oeuvre can be found in the debate that took place in the early 20 th century. Gerrit Rietveld and Adolf Loos before him were convinced that a new, revolutionary vision of ‘sitting’ was required. Adolf Loos wrote that the technique of sitting had changed significantly over the centuries. These days, 8. Peter Vöge, The Complete Rietveld Furniture, (Rotterdam : 010, 1993), p. 17.
pp. 119 -121 : z.t. [Untitled], 2004 Kerselaar, esdoorn, potlood / Cherry, maple, pencil, 63 cm (h) Privécollectie / Private collection z.t. [Untitled], 2005 Potlood en acryl op papier / Pencil and acrylic on paper, 29,7 x 21 cm Privécollectie / Private collection Ovalen tekening met takken [Oval Drawing with Branches], 1972 Houtskool op papier / Charcoal on paper, 32 x 26 cm Privécollectie / Private collection
Stronk [Trunk], 2007 Olieverf op doek / Oil on canvas, 70 x 50 cm Privécollectie / Private collection