Everyone seems to shop in Ikea these days, including the crème de le crème of the art world. The Brussels-based gallery Office Baroque has taken this retail fetish a step further with the online show Chambres d’Amis: Ikea (until 30 June), comprising a series of works Photoshopped into the last print edition of the Ikea catalogue dating from 2021.
Wood you believe it: artist Nik Gelormino’s pine sculpture Flower Stool No. 4 (2022) brings a piece of the great outdoors to the Scandi Ikea bathroom Courtesy the artist and Office Baroque.
Peruse bathrooms, lounges and kitchens dotted with works by 39 artists including the Los Angeles-based Nik Gelormino whose Flower Stool No. 4 complements a stark toiletries cabinet while the Hong Kong-born artist David Diao’s painting For Scale Sake (2010) slips effortlessly into an Ikea bedroom scene. The virtual art and interiors “builds on the legacy of the 1986 in situ exhibition Chambres d’Amis, curated by Jan Hoet in the private homes of 51 families in Ghent”, according to a statement from the gallery. It adds: “The project is also an oddball study in showing and viewing art online.” Call it arty retail therapy.