A Thing on a Table in a House

Showcasing pieces made between 2017 and 2021, a flick through A Thing on a Table in a House transports you directly into Serban Ionescu’s anthropomorphic world, one that straddles the ever-fine line separating furniture and sculpture. This publication is in itself a Ionescu sculpture, its oversized board-book format printed and precisely die-cut to mimic the rambling contours and dazzling colors found on the steel sculptures of this prolific New York-based, Romanian-born artist. It also doubles as a play, penned in three acts by Ionescu’s fellow artist and close friend James English Leary, who fully embraces Ionescu’s artistic approach and explores his ideas in a highly absurd series of events that feature an all-star cast of bizarre characters: Happy Lattice, Dog Bench Loaf, and Assembled Chair, to name a few. If one were to classify these pieces as furniture, then you’d be looking at pieces that have been overrun by some sort of menacing, playful poltergeist. Possessed, they are half