Simon Starling - Three White Desks - Tate Triennial - Altermodern

This work by Simon Starling (Three White Desks) was created by sending 3 cabinet makers in 3 different countries photographs of a desk once owned by Francis Bacon. Starling requested that each cabinet maker recreate the desk as closesly as they could to the likeness in the photograph accompanying his instructions, no dimensions or further information was sent enclosed. Starling sent the instructions to each craftsman in turn.

When the first desk arrived, Starling photographed it and sent the image off to the second cabinet maker and so on, until in a Chinese Whispers style way, the likeness of the desks degraded, through the effects of transit, digital communication and distance.

This work makes me think of the way families and friends move or are diaplaced throughout countries and continents and are therefore forced to communicate in a second hand way, the ever decreasing quality of the desks serving as a metaphor for the weakening of the social structures and communities in which individuals find strength and inspiration.