Dictionary for Building: Fireplace Mantel

Siah Armajani’s affinity for interior and public architecture is articulated in this sculpture, one of his early works from his Dictionary for Building sculpture series, in which he combines text from Robert Frost’s poem, The Hill Wife (1916) with abstracted, yet recognizable furniture or architectural objects, in this case a fireplace mantel. The poem’s text about a couple’s uneasy relationship with their home expands upon Armajani’s interpretation of a mantel as a dynamic structure—as opposed to a fixed centerpiece or sentimental hearth—to be moved through and around. Mirrors, which conventionally are installed above a fireplace, are angled inwards to reveal otherwise imperceptible aspects of the structure. For the artist, sculpture was “not a thing between four walls in a geometric spatial sense but a tool which directs us into a place for living, sitting, resting, reading, eating, and talking,” suggesting a symbiotic relationship between furniture, sculpture and architecture.