‘Were their owners’ lives turned upside down too?’ What this tower of chairs says about Putin’s war
In 2003, between the months of September and November, 1,500 chairs were slotted and shoved into a giant stack that filled the gap between two buildings in Istanbul. This installation, which seemed both full of violence yet disquietingly empty, spoke of loss, mourning, absence and destruction. Although only now existing in photographs, and in the memory of those who witnessed it, the work makes us wonder where all these chairs came from, who they once belonged to, and what the lives of the people who sat on them were like, as they gathered with others and conversed. Were their lives turned upside down too?
Untitled, 2003, was by Doris Salcedo, the Colombian-born artist who grew up during the Colombian conflict, the battle between the government, crime syndicates, far-right and far-left groups that began in 1964. Salcedo’s work often focuses on the human experience of war, or the futile borders that keep our world divided. “I am a third world artist,” she once said, adding that she looked at the world “from the perspective of the victim, the defeated people”.
By situating Untitled in the public realm, Salcedo opens up the work to interpretations from ordinary passersby, inviting them to tie this unusual sight to their own experiences. But she also presents the every day reality of living through a war: the abandoned possessions left after fleeing, the inescapability of it, the countless lives lost – a pervasive, neverendingness that seeps into daily existence. And what object could be more evocative of daily existence than a simple chair? A stack of 1,500 seems an enormous amount, yet it is nothing compared to the reality of a fleeing population. Untitled becomes a mass grave to the people who once existed – and flourished – in places that are now desolate.
Stacked in layers, the chairs come in all sorts of different shapes, sizes and colours, each one revealing something of its own distinct origins. It’s a point worth bearing in mind when we see huddled masses of refugees: that these are all individuals with separate experiences. Although installed by a Colombian artist and located in Istanbul, the work’s strength lies in the fact that its scope seems far wider and that it keeps speaking to us in new situations.
Given the date of its creation, it could be read as addressing the brutal wars of the early 2000s, while its towering, precariousness might suggest the mishandling by governments of their people, who wait in chairs the world over to be processed by uncaring officials. The overpowering sensation of absent bodies also chimes with the loss of life caused by Covid or, more recently, Putin’s destruction of Ukraine. It is the latter that feels most poignant at present.
As we passed the six-month mark of the invasion last week, on the 31st anniversary of Ukraine’s independence, one can’t help but see Untitled as symbolic of the wrecking of a country that once thrived, but which has been – and continues to be – torn apart by violence. Its very format also seems to echo the west’s conflicting media coverage of the war as interest and outrage slowly begin to dwindle. Constructed between two buildings on an unassuming street, the work is only visible from above or from the front. Walk to the side and suddenly it’s like Untitled never existed.
Full of contractions – fragile and strong, loud and quiet, visible and invisible – the work reminds us of those who are denied a voice, or whose voices go unheard, those being the people who often suffer the most. As Salcedo said of the work: “Woven within the fabric of the city … it just sits there quietly.”
Untitled, although initially appearing chaotic, with chairs that look as though they could crash out on to the street, is also full of order: these pieces of furniture rise perfectly in line with the surrounding buildings as if held there by an invisible wall. This opens up another dimension to war, something that Salcedo spoke of – the side “that is rational, it is a business … At the end it is chaotic, organic, painful. But it is thought out and planned with coldness.”
By transforming objects and places that are synonymous with our daily lives – from working to eating to socialising – Salcedo makes us realise on an individual level how close the lives we lead are to destruction and how we are affected by it. She takes a simple object, one whose sole function is to accommodate the human in comfort, multiplies it, then renders it defunct. The result, in the street of a city that straddles east and west, doesn’t just show us the absence of people, but also their disempowerment. “It’s not important to know the event,” Salcedo said. “I am not narrating a particular story. I am just addressing experiences.”
One can’t help but see this work as symbolic of the wrecking of a country that once thrived