Cupboard "Kontrast" - 1984

Painted wood, granite, and marble
92 x 75 x 75 cm

Provenance:
André Van Schuylenbergh collection, Aalst

Literature:
Christian Kieckens, Eva Storgaard, Pieter de Bruyne 1931-1987, pionier van het postmoderne, UPA, Brussels, 2012, ill.p.97, p.235, °4.12.1984

From 1970 onwards, the tension between furniture and art became the main focus in Pieter De Bruyne's designs. He distanced himself progressively from the current views on furniture but rather engaged in a dialogue with both classical and post-modern works of art. As such he broke radically from the general approach to furniture, which at the time in Belgium was mainly dominated by mass production. At the beginning of the 1970s, he only designed for himself or for interested clients. The designs were produced in a very limited edition and made exclusively in his father's furniture workshop, using traditional methods. As a result, these furniture pieces have become exclusive objects.
Typically, in Pieter De Bruyne's furniture designs, the traditional wall position has been banished in favor of a freestanding position in the room. The furniture is now an autonomous element that requires the surrounding space to enter into a relationship with it and not the other way around.
This cupboard is a perfect illustration of how a cupboard is created as a free-standing object. As the title indicates, it is a play in contrasting volumes and colors, hollow volumes are mirrored with full volumes, black with white.