Chaise de Fermier par Markus Friedrich Staab pour Atelier Markus Friedrich Staab, 1900

Le designer et artiste autodidacte Markus Friedrich Staab est né en 1964 à Aschaffenburg, Allemagne. Il ouvre son studio éponyme, Atelier Staab, à Aschaffenburg en 1986, avant de déménager à Francfort en 1996. Sa pratique inclut la sculpture et la peinture.

En 2012, Markus Friedrich Staab débute des expérimentations design. Il peint et transforme des meubles déjà existants (tout genre de meubles, la plupart étant des chaises) en pièces uniques, donnant ainsi de la valeur à des objets du quotidien, voir même des objets historiques, qui sont négligés. D’après Markus Friedrich Staab, “ces chaises ont été produites en masses de manière homogène et sont devenus uniques et singulières. Je suis particulièrement fasciné par ce thème - les chaises comme objets sculpturaux et l’art comme objet de futilité.”

Le travail de Markus Friedrich Staab est présenté dans bon nombre de collections privées. Ces principaux projets design incluent sa participation à l’exposition Design Festival de Londres en 2014 à 19 Greek Street, mais aussi une série de meubles  pour la chaine de restaurant Wahaca à Londres (2014 et 2012), et une commande de 50 chaises pour un restaurant pop-up pour le Museum für Moderne Kunst (MKK) à Francfort (2013).

German artist and designer Markus Friedrich Staab transforms the everyday, the forgotten and the normal into the extraordinary. Armed with a scalpel and a variety of brightly colored paints, Staab treats park benches, farmers' stools and industrial chairs in the same way that an artists treats her canvas. Staab's icon is the mass-produced chair. It is however reclaimed through his work: transformed from one piece of a homogenous set to an individual piece with a unique coat.

Working from his atelier in Frankfurt am Main, Staab's work is more demanding than it may seem. He lacquers his work at least twelve times, paints with pop colors and then applies a high-gloss varnish. Often the process will also include spray painting and sanding of surfaces. Staab aims to recapture ideas of utility in his work and the result of a striking and beautifully modified product. His maxim of 're-cycled, re-furbished, re-mixed and re-decorated' is the clearest expression of his ethos.

Staab is a self-taught artist and designer who began as a painter and sculptor. His work with objects found on the street or in second-hand stores, and particularly chairs, began in earnest in 2010. Since then he has transformed a variety of objects, most often with a history: a courtroom bench from Hamburg in the 60s, a pair of chairs from a German church given to him by a friend and even an architect‘s chair found in the streets of Frankfurt from the 1930s. As Staab continues to remix the regular, he becomes a symbol for sustainable artwork and equally for individual expression in all of its colorways.