Manicured Chair by Marian Bantjes

Marian Bantjes
Manicured Chair, 2010

Wooden folding chair, nail polish, varnish

In a project ‘saved by droog ‘, 14 international designers were invited by droog to reconsider the 5135 items they collected as raw material for some creative intervention. Canadian graphic designer and illustrator Marian Bantjes was among the designers invited to participate in the project. She selected two items: a single wooden table and 80 wooden folding chairs.

‘I had just had my fingernails done in LA for the first time, and I was fascinated with how quickly and nicely the manicurist put designs on my nails. So I proposed to droog that we get 80 manicurists and get one each to decorate a chair. Incredibly, they went for it. In the end, there were only 4 or 5 manicurists, but still…’

The collection of 80 folding chairs appropriately entitled ‘manicured chairs’, were each painted by nail artists with a variety of designs in order to bring their delicacy, precision and utmost care to a new purpose.

Manicured Chair is in the collection of the Centraal Museum Utrecht as a part of their Droog Design collection.