Errazuriz: Explosion

Carnegie Museum of Art (CMOA) has acquired Explosion, a new mind-bending cabinet by Sebastian Errazuriz, which embodies the designer’s mischievous sensibilities.

The cabinet Explosion will be one of the centerpieces of “Sebastian Errazuriz: Look Again” the exhibition which opens September 6, at the Carnegie Museum of Art (CMOA).

Inactivated, Explosion sits as a tidy, beautiful credenza. Transparent glass sidewalls provide a glimpse inside this intriguing but staid box. Further exploration of the central vertical seam reveals an entirely different object: with a gentle push, the rails slide further and further open until it seems that the cabinet has exploded beyond the bounds of stability.

Even as Explosion’s exterior expands outward, it retains beautiful geometric proportions, using mechanics so complex that they took more than a year to perfect, despite borrowing one of cabinetmaking’s oldest tricks, the sliding dovetail. This new work will join a selection of important objects representing the breadth of Errazuriz’s practice in “Sebastian Errazuriz: Look Again”, his first solo museum exhibition.