Robert Wilson’s Theatrical Scenography Shapes ‘A Chair and You’ at Kunsthal Rotterdam

Kunsthal Rotterdam will present ‘A Chair and You’ in Hall 2 from 26 September 2026 to 31 January 2027. Built around the Thierry Barbier-Mueller Collection, the exhibition brings together 150 chairs by 124 designers, selected by the late American director, scenographer and artist Robert Wilson (1941–2025).

Wilson used light, sound and scenery to create four thematic worlds inspired by the performing arts. The installation ranges from a Jackson Pollock-inspired room of colourful forms and “wondrous materials” to a space of calm and order, defined by clean lines and soft tones that evoke modernist architecture. Kunsthal describes the result as foregrounding the objects’ “meaningful, almost theatrical power” and allowing the chairs to “speak without words.”

The selection draws from a collection assembled from the late 1990s by the Geneva-based entrepreneur and collector Thierry Barbier-Mueller (1960–2023). Built through spontaneous discoveries and personal encounters, it has grown to more than 650 works dating from the 1960s to the present. Its holdings include seating by artists, designers and architects including Ettore Sottsass, Ron Arad, Martino Gamper, Maarten Baas, Donald Judd, Niki de Saint Phalle, Lawrence Weiner and Franz West.

Among the named chairs from the Thierry Barbier-Mueller Collection are de Saint Phalle’s ‘Double Headed Snake Chair’ (1999), made of painted wood with ceramic and mirror inlays, and Charles Kaisin’s ‘Hairy Chair’ (2011), constructed from wood, glue and paper strips. Stefan Wewerka’s red-lacquered-wood ‘Classroom Chair’ (1971) is another work identified from the collection.

‘A Chair and You’ is realised in close collaboration with Fondation Musée Barbier-Mueller in Geneva and mudac—the Museum of Contemporary Design and Applied Arts—in Lausanne.