In colloquial usage, the prefix anti- rather simplistically signifies a direct opposition, and a standing against. Traditionally applied to behaviours—human or otherwise, alignments—political or otherwise, processes, and palliative medical care, the contrarian term has seldom implied a provocation, a subversion of what we consider to be the norm, the convention, particularly of the absorbing physicality of objects. That subversion itself serves a dual purpose, laced with the questions of an identity and its inter- or in-dependence with respect to the object of subversion. Not only is the newly subverted imparted an identity of its own, it also serves to create a lens with which to revisit a rather primordial, and even a deeply personal relationship with this object of subversion. More so, the subversion itself, as an act of parallel, alternative creation, stands to question a fundamentalism associated with the inconspicuous daily, emanating as a series of ‘what-ifs’ that stand valid on either side of this subversion. In his latest work, aptly and unassumingly titled ANTIFURNITURE, Russian-born Brazilian performance artist Fyodor Pavlov-Andreevich manifests a series of ‘what-ifs’ superimposed onto furniture as a collection of eight interactive sculptural exhibits.

Designed in collaboration with New York based architecture and interiors practice BoND, the fragments of ANTIFURNITURE or its individual sculptures, each embodying an interactive experience, are spread across the Design Museum’s atrium, mezzanine, and gardens in Kensington, London, inviting visitors to partake in what is termed by the artist to be the “collective performing body” of ANTIFURNITURE. The subversion in his act, his objects in this way—no longer underlying—is also dextrously layered. For it is a fundamental rethinking of not only seemingly banal objects of utility, but also of Pavlov-Andreevich's brand of performing that places sharp focus on the artist’s own body as being part of the metaphorical battlefield of performance art. It is a polemic giving away of the artist’s perceivable authority as being at the spearhead of resistance to embody a more collective and conscientious sense of being for visitors, a kinship and sovereignty, especially in times as polarised as ours. Recalling performance art icon Marina Abramović whose excellent, haunting retrospective is on display at the Royal Academy of Arts, and her definitive MoMA show, The Artist is Present, Pavlov-Andreevich triumphantly remarks of his display: “the artist is absent”.

The myriad number of terms used in the nonsingular definition of ANTIFURNITURE is further a signifier of the many intersections it traverses in its operation and genesis, the many interpretations it begets, and the defiant, self-willed unclassifiable nature of this work. Spanning performance art, furniture, sculpture, woodworking, and speculative design, along with a highly discursive outcome, all in a subverted sense of course, ANTIFURNITURE harbours a highly dichotomous experience of being both a collective enactment as well as a deeply personal experience that even serves to redefine the traditionality of a museum visit. While labelling it a “protest against a globalisation, and solidarity with those who are cut off from us,” the artist interestingly describes the physicality of the experience and the participant’s bodily manipulation and constriction as being “somewhere between an amusement park and an airport security checkpoint”—both spaces with vastly different meanings of publicness, freedom of movement, surveillance, and an anticipatory notion of fun.

Daniel Rauchwerger of BoND shares in that idea of 'fun' weighed with a sense of reflection that manifests in their crafting of the pieces through the wood’s monochrome materiality tying everything together. “We designed the objects in a way that obscures when they were designed—somehow historic and futuristic at once. That's a line we like to play with in our design,” he states. "I think the objects are very aesthetic as sculptures, but then when you get into them they are quite uncomfortable, spatially and emotionally—that's the type of tension we were hoping to create,” he further adds on the supposed rupture of personal space inside ANTIFURNITURE.

The dichotomous experience is further propounded by each of the individual pieces involving a degree of playful engagement, while also harbouring deeply intense experiences that force viewers to look inwards and confront their social anxieties under situations of elevated control orchestrated by ANTIFURNITURE. Phobias, in fact, and their genesis and resolution are central to the understanding of and interaction with Pavlov-Andreevich's work. Trophy-Hammock, for instance, is an inverted hammock mounted on a rather complex wooden assembly with orifices for the viewer’s limbs and face, enabling them to lie on their front, instead of lying on their backs. For Pavlov-Andreevich, the experience is a metaphorical rejoinder of an exponentially heightened fear of losing mobility, mirroring the current state of rampant geopolitical wars across the globe right now. It builds on acrophobia and basophobia. Procrustes, another one of the eight pieces, has a greater degree of mobility involved, and engages with the viewer’s potential feelings of claustrophobia and cleithrophobia (fear of being trapped). The work, referring to the Greek myth of Procrustes who claimed the lives of the wayward travellers that didn’t perfectly fit in his iron bed, serves as a conjunction of “modern safety choreography”—as the artist describes them—and our everyday movements, along with normative protocol and an expected universal adherence to it.

Apart from housing a nascent critique of contemporary design, the most supple understanding of Pavlov-Andreevich's work here lent itself to me as somewhere between a metamorphosis and an intersection. Within the spatial and programmatic context of the Design Museum, ANTIFURNITURE morphs, transforms, mimics, is activated, and near consciously transcends its object status to record, bear witness to the myriad ways in which people interact with these sculptural pieces—what they think, observe, feel, and what they perhaps whisper unto themselves and the wood.

Click on the video in the banner to view the full video interview with Fyodor Pavlov-Andreevich and Tim Marlow, director at the Design Museum.

ANTIFURNITURE remains on display until October 29 at the Design Museum, London.