Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Why are artists and designers making furniture so \u201chandsy\u201d? Hands are everywhere in design: on lamps, tables, chairs and mirrors; in wicker and ceramic; grabbing, touching and gesticulating. The results range from playful to unsettling.\u201cI was always obsessed with the hands in Rodin\u2019s sculptures \u2014 and the emotion that can be displayed through singular body parts,\u201d says LA-based artist Vincent Pocsik, whose furniture featuring hands was on show with gallery Nazarian \/ Curcio at Frieze Los Angeles in February. While Pocsik also depicts ears and feet, hands are particularly expressive. \u201cI understand more through my hands and touching than I do through any other sense \u2014 so in that way it\u2019s a bit of a self-portrait,\u201d he says.In \u201cBench with Lemons Hands and Ears\u201d (2024), the carved walnut frame morphs into surreal disembodied ears, arms and hands caught in the act of picking lemons. It\u2019s like a Hieronymus Bosch painting. The motif of hands picking fruit recurs in Pocsik\u2019s work, drawing on his past; he grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, where his grandparents had planted pear and plum trees. Meanwhile, \u201cRemember Your Hands\u201d (2024), an elegant mirror integrating carved hands and foliage, draws on the memory of his mother telling him to \u201cremember your hands\u201d when he felt anxious as a child. \u201cIt was about focusing on this singular body part and remembering your own body \u2014 a kind of mindfulness.\u201dGerald Mak, a London-based artist and ceramicist from Hong Kong, depicts seas of hands in his works, displaying various gestures such as the \u201cOK\u201d sign or crossed fingers. \u201cCentral to my practice is an interest in people, relationships and social behaviours \u2014 for me hand gestures represent these connections,\u201d he says.\u00a0Mak began to carve hand motifs into clay while undertaking a residency in Jingdezhen, China \u2014 a historic centre of ceramic production. His table, \u201cHandle with Care\u201d (2023), and two variations of \u201cPorcelain Garden Stool\u201d (2024) were shown in London last autumn at County Hall Pottery\u2019s Formations in Clay Furniture exhibition. In one stool, hands are interlaced with olive branches, \u201cas a play on the symbolic gesture of goodwill\u201d, Mak says. For the table, he combined the \u201cplayful and cheeky\u201d with the \u201cmore numinous\u201d, such as hands inspired by Guanyin, a Buddhist figure associated with compassion and mercy.Mak also sees hand motifs as an emblem of himself as a maker. \u201cThe hand gesture becomes this symbol of agency and labour,\u201d he says.It\u2019s a sentiment shared by Chris Wolston, an American artist and designer based between New York and Medell\u00edn, Colombia: \u201cI\u2019m drawn to the duality of the hand \u2014 both as a tool of creation and as a subject within the work,\u201d he says. In his \u201cTouch Me Chair 2\u201d (2024), recently exhibited at The Future Perfect in New York, the curved shearling back is covered in a mass of overlapping wicker hands. \u201cThis sensory relationship between the object and the body [\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009] brings the furniture to life,\u201d he says. The resulting scene appears like a hoard of zombies \u2014 or a symbol of togetherness. In \u201cTouch Me Table\u201d (2024), a ceramic top depicts multicoloured hands rendered joyfully and simplistically in childlike form.There\u2019s a surrealist sensibility in the work of New York artist Genesis Belanger. Her stoneware \u201cLady Lamps\u201d, an ongoing series since 2017, take the form of hands crossed over a bust, topped by a lamp in place of a head. \u201cI think adding human features to something like a lamp is a tidy way to talk about objectification,\u201d Belanger says.\u00a0Her pieces are influenced by her experience working in advertising and prop-styling, where she saw that \u201cwe as a culture are completely fine with separating bits of women\u2019s bodies \u2014 like a disembodied hand \u2014 to sell things,\u201d she says. In her work, Belanger \u201clooks for vehicles to talk about human experience and the ways in which we treat certain parts of society as if they are the furniture\u201d.Whether through personal expression or societal subversion, hands can carry a range of meanings. Just don\u2019t be surprised if they reach out from the next bench you sit on.\u00a0Find out about our latest stories first \u2014 follow @ft_houseandhome on Instagram<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Why are artists and designers making furniture so \u201chandsy\u201d? Hands are everywhere in design: on lamps, tables, chairs and mirrors; in wicker and ceramic; grabbing, touching<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":246635,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-246634","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246634"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246634\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":246636,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246634\/revisions\/246636"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}