SEBASTIAN ERRAZURIZ’S EXPLOSION CABINET

A brilliant cabinet design for the artist/designer's first solo museum exhibition

Just when the headless Chicken Lamp was beginning to fade from our collective memory, Sebastian Errazuriz pops up again. However, his Explosion Cabinet is turning heads not for its shock factor but rather for its impressive design craftsmanship. Acquired by the Carnegie Museum of Art (CMOA) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the cabinet will be part of Sebastian’s very first solo museum exhibition titled Sebastian Errazuriz: Look Again.

The Explosion Cabinet definitely demands that you “look again”. When closed, it resembles an unassuming credenza. Feigning transparency, lateral glass walls even give viewers a peek at the interior of the conventional piece. But all is not as it seems.

A simple slide of hand pushes the rails further and further apart until they have expanded beyond reasonable limits. It “explodes” into something else entirely.

Combining traditional techniques from artisan cabinetmakers and “mechanics so complex that they took a year to perfect,” the Explosion Cabinet transforms from furniture to art. If only such complex boundaries were really so simple.

The exhibition will open on September 6th and feature ten years of the artist/designer’s work, including the Chicken Lamp’s duck predecessor (which is clearly not to be missed).