Or, as the information boards pleasingly put it, ‘WEGNER AND CHAIRS’. I suppose it would be facetious of me to note that the designer Hans Wegner is not present at the exhibition in person. But while the observation may seem flippant to the reader, it should have weight for anyone in Jock Colville Hall at Churchill College, where his chairs are displayed - the furniture does not appear to have been created by any one person. It is as if someone has invited more friends than chairs to an amateur talk he is to give and, to placate potentially angry floor-numbed backsides, has gathered chairs from various locations and assembled them in approximate rows. The audience is yet to appear.

   The only difficulty with this analogy is that nowhere is one likely to find such a ludicrous collection of chairs in gathering-distance. There is the “Valet” chair, whose back is reminiscent of a violin and doubles as a coat hanger; a large black chair, wider at the head than at the waist, on which a white cat might expect villainous caresses; there is “The Round One”, declared by American magazine Interiors in 1950 as the most beautiful chair in the world (it is a very 1950s conception of beauty). Nor is it likely that the hypothetical talk-giver would have frantically assembled the eclectic group if he had read the surrounding information boards, one of which present Wegner’s jocose statement: “the chair does not exist”. Neither would he have faced all chairs ‘forwards’ after reading, “a chair should have no rearside. It should be beautiful from all sides and angles.”

   In the doubtful circumstance that an audience would have turned up and attempted to sit in these chairs, they would have remained standing, asking why the chairs were on foot-high platforms while another Wegner quote declares: “the chair is only finished when someone sits in it.” After a while, however, they would hopefully have comprehended the comic absurdity of it all: chairs assembled for them, but in such an arrangement where to sit in them would be both practically difficult and to transgress an unspoken rule of the museum-like space. Their legs would have to grow weary as they watch and long for the session to begin. Thankfully, the exhibition provides two side-chairs for the traveller’s comfort. Not missing a trick though, some clever devil has made sure that these are Wegner designs, and it is only after significant inner turmoil that I dare to lower myself into sedentary ease. And I have to say, it is a truly splendid chair. Whilst sat, I conclude that the talk looks as if it will never actually occur, and I am glad; people would spoil these chairs (my side-chair excepted). A possible audience member enters the hall and in my head I beg him to leave, so that I can spend more time with the chairs, so that they can tell me of their completion, of their comfort.

‘Chairs by Wegner’ will be on display at Churchill College until the 28th November, 9-5pm, Admission Free