The artist took his place on a freshly painted red office chair just before the museum doors opened. His wardrobe was consistent: A white shirt, white trousers and worn white socks with no shoes. His garment has traces of the red paint from the chair. His pose is at ease changing his posture frequently and facing the audience.

The first thing that strikes the eye in this work is the binary structure to which its name testifies  (Man and chair, Asana and fixed shape): A man in white sitting in different postures on the one hand, on a roughly painted red chair on the other. Do these two elements hold tension? And if yes another question arises as to what precisely is the source of this tension?

On the one hand, the chair is a product of culture, and has a functional role (humans can sit on), on the other hand it is a violent object, executing forceful and coercive practices of limitation on the living body and its posture (exerting paint and limiting certain postures). Salfiti’s postures are inspired by the asanas and of mimicking the postures of politicians while sitting on chairs. Salfiti sitting on the chair therefore invites us to reflect on the relation between violence and culture, and hence on the nature of violence as such.

The point of origin of this work is “Asana” – a word in Sanskrit translatable to English as “postures” and relates to being at ease with one’s body. The work demonstrates the way bodily postures reflect our state of mind, while the chair signifies political and class-related power positions.