Remember when you were younger and your parents told you not to leave your toys all over the floor? And then you got a bit older and they told you to “Stop leaving your s*** lying around everywhere!” (and perhaps then some non-parental figures in your life might have told you that while you shared living spaces)? Well, here’s a case for the opposite. I’ve been inspired lately by a growing trend of leaving your s*** on the floor. No, not your dirty laundry and takeout boxes, rather, the s*** in question (which really isn’t s*** at all, except in a few cases of exceptionally poor taste, or in the brilliant work of Chris Ofili), is art.
Photo via stylebyemilyhenderson.com
As a onetime Art History major, I literally have written essays on the cultural implications of removing art from the traditional sacred pedestal setting of the museum [as temple] wall, but the practice has taken a much more functional and widespread direction in the world of interior design. Feeling as though you’re living Sophie’s Choice deciding which masterpieces deserve your strictly finite wall space? Guilt-ridden at the thought of banishing a work of creative genius/seriously the raddest [insert band name] poster to a lifetime in Manhattan Mini-Storage, witty and prolific though their ads may be? Here’s a brilliant idea: take the paintings off the wall and put them on the goddamn floor. That’s right, everybody: the good old fashioned ground has become an acceptable — even trendy — place to store your art. Added bonus: no mounting necessary (my cheap plaster walls are thanking me, as is my landlord, but he’ll rethink that when he notices my wallpaper job)!
Some examples:
The white painted floors here keep this arrangement from invoking a storage unit/unkempt studio, and the second ledge draws the eye up the wall. Also bonus points for the bearskin rug, obviously.
Photo: Skona Hem via fromtherightbank.com
This (Manhattan!!) stairway is nicer than my apartment, but no hard feelings.
Iris Apfel’s Manhattan apartment. The floor display here is likely due more to a fundamental lack of literally any other space upon which to place decoration, but same effect. Apfel somehow succeeds in making the clutter of memorabilia from bygone eras found in your grandmother’s home look hip; I strive to be as stylish in my 20s as she is in her 90s (!!). Photo fromArchitectural Digest
Brooke Shields has to literally just be slightly above the rest of us; she employs the same technique atop a long shelf in her home office, photographed in Architectural Digest. The layering of different monochromatic prints here is great though; the wall displays multiple works of varying sizes while still achieving the same aura of calm as would a plain gray wall (and who the #@*& wants a plain gray wall?).
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