Ludwig

An elegant Louis XIV-style chair leaves the safe interior of a home and enters the harsh expanse of nature. It traverses mud, stones, and an empty landscape, struggling against the elements and its own fragility. Eventually, it is confronted by the ruthless force of machinery—a saw that breaks it apart and reduces it to raw material. Jerzy Kalina’s animation, created using a cut-out technique, presents the fate of an object as a metaphor for culture: that which is unique and refined is subjected to processes of simplification and mass production until it disappears among identical, utilitarian forms.