Misha Kahn

Be My Guest: The Art of Interiors

• Saturday Morning Series: Large Yellow Mirror, 2013
  Resin, vinyl, glass and foil
  42 x 20 x 2 inches
  Courtesy of the Artist and Friedman Benda
• Saturday Morning Series: Red Wall Mirror, 2015
  Resin, mirror and automotive paint
  58.5 x 30.5 x 6 inches
  Courtesy of the Artist and Friedman Benda

Misha Kahn’s work spans the continually shifting space between art and design. He looks to objects as stored memories about life in a consumer society—a society defined by the acquisition of items that are quickly discarded, lost in thrift shop bins, and only remembered years later. They are items left on the sidewalk after college graduation and immediately gobbled up by “dumpster divers” in the post-graduation frenzy. These possessions are what inspired Kahn and turn up reborn in his assortment of furniture and assemblage.

His work marries earth with space, craft with technology, and the phenomenal with the everyday. Unlike the experience exhibition-goers have when viewing objects isolated in a white box, Kahn wants visitors to experience what they might feel if seated in a basement easy chair surrounded by life-long remnants of objects of great importance and no importance at all. Kahn says his objects are “meant to encourage comfort with one’s own mental chaos.”