Posted on 1/31/2019
Were it not for the gleaming beer taps, Elmgreen & Dragset’s ovoid Queer Bar/Powerless Structures, Fig. 221 (which has just won Best Watering Hole in the Wallpaper* Design Awards) could have been a minimalist monument, its sterile Corian surfaces evoking a clinic rather than a seedy drinking den.
The humour, of course, lies in its inside-out configuration; the black stools are trapped in its core, which the viewer is unable to access. As in the artists’ earlier work – whether a diving board bisected by a window, a pair of pissoirs encased in glass, or a series of inoperable doors – the denial of function transforms a mundane item into a catalyst for contemplation...