Artist, Sophie Taeuber-Arp (read by curator, Walburga Krupp): Always distinguish between the essential and the inessential. The object and its purpose are the primary thing. Ornament must in every case be subordinate to form.
Curator, Anne Umland: Sophie Taeuber-Arp wrote those words in 1922. Here we’re looking at modular furniture that she designed for the studio-house, just outside Paris, that she also designed for herself and her husband, the artist Hans Arp.
Curatorial Assistant, Laura Braverman: These furniture pieces are very light, which means that they could have been moved around easily and recombined in different configurations. It is designed in a very functional way. So for example, if you put them on top of one another, they become a library or a shelf. But if you put two of those pieces, like the gray and yellow one next to each other on the floor, they could become a coffee table.
Writer and journalist, Amah-Rose Abrams: I think we often forget about artists' lives. It's never been a steady profession and the better you are equipped to apply your practice to something else, the easier it is to survive.
I do find it unique that as a couple, they seem to have just had this life where it was interchangeable—at times he was the breadwinner, at times she was the breadwinner— and it seems to be very symbiotic. And it was productive. They ended up with this beautiful house that she designed, and they got to do these wonderful projects. They weren't held back by wanting to pursue any one career.