Library shelf
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.Branzi’s bookcase conjures the most archetypal of architectural forms, the ancient ziggurat. Like the builders of the Tower of Babel, who spoke a unified language until they challenged God with their heaven-aspiring creation, Branzi constructed a tower using the unified language of modernism—with the classically modern materials of glass and steel in a rational suspension structure that transparently expresses the final form. The postmodern coup de grace is the finial flourish, the plastic Babylonian palm fronds. This work relates to both the Carlton room divider, which features the same unconventional triangular form and sculptural stance, and the Capodanno lamp, which shares its theatrical exposition of materials and structural form.
Artwork Details
- Title: Library shelf
- Artist: Andrea Branzi (Italian)
- Manufacturer: Memphis Milano
- Date: 1980-1989
- Medium: Glass, metal, plastic
- Dimensions: 82 × 79 × 20 in. (208.3 × 200.7 × 50.8 cm)
- Classification: Furniture
- Credit Line: Collection of Dennis Freedman
- Rights and Reproduction: © Andrea Branzi
- Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art