The project we have in mind begins with a little anecdote. Upon a chance meeting with Australian geometric abstraction painter John Nixon (1949) in the Netherlands, a thorough conversation revolving around a discontinued line of an Ikea table was brought up. The table was first spotted in John’s numerous catalogues, as a surface to place his paintings on in exhibitions. It was a simple support structure that he continued to use in a number of exhibitions, and in a way adopted a staple identity of its own as the useful functional design object that becomes an art object.

In john’s account of the table, due to the unfortunate circumstances of the discontinued line, he forcibly sort to recreate the table for an exhibition in New Zealand by sending strict instructional sketches and photographs for a replica to be produced. However, upon arriving in New Zealand, he had found that the table looked precisely like its original model, but the function of the inward folding legs were disabled. It was not considered in the construction process because its appearance was already removed from the once transportable, utilitarian function it once had.

Through the table’s many mass manufactured incarnations, it has now entered the art context as a unique hand crafted object. It was considered so important that it was shipped back to Australia along with the exhibited paintings.