Here’s Thiago Sartorelli’s Abaporu Chair and just beneath it is the original Abaporu, Tarcila do Amaral’s masterful painting whose title is loosely translated as “The Man Who Eats People.”

The painting’s title refers to the concept of “cannibalizing” or appropriating art and other cultural forms from different eras and societies. In this case, the painter was inverting the typical dynamic of European appropriation of Brazilian indigenous motifs by making her own riff on European Cubism and Fauvism.

Thiago’s chair is an overt homage to do Amaral on the anniversary of the 1922 Modern Art Week.

Just like the painting, the chair toys with perspective, its sense of gigantism vs. balance upended depending on the view. Also like the painting, this inventive recapitulation has a salient defining characteristic: its whimsically oversized front appendages.

See Thiago Sartorelli to find out more.