Welded steel, 45 x 45 x 33, 1997.
“Hidebound” is said of a mind that takes in nothing new, and the word began as a description of livestock whose skin has drawn tight over the bones. The sculpture is built for both senses. The seat is a curved sheet of steel stretched over a dark hollow, like skin drawn tight over an empty frame, and the sitter’s place is as rigidly fitted as a stiff habit of thought.
A tall flat plate stands upright at the back. A step rises behind the seat in front of it, and a rail comes down from the top of the plate in a long arc, braced by three slim struts, to close off the open side. The seat is fenced front, back and side, and every way a person could shift position has a fitting set against it. The chair prescribes one posture, and nothing in it is movable or yielding. Rigidity of this kind is what the word describes, here in the form of furniture.
A short cylinder on a flanged foot stands outside the rail, clear of the chair. The posture is built into the object, and the seat is empty.
