Thinking “outside the box” has special meaning in the textile arts, where the logic of the loom often dictates form. In the 1960s and ‘70s several artists (among them Françoise Grossen, who has a presence at Object & Thing) found ways to break through this creative constraint, occupying space in a new way. This history forms an important backdrop for the work of Liz Collins, a Brooklyn-based artist who has operated in several areas of textiles – fabric design, fashion, wall hangings - and exploded every one of them. The double chair seen here is a diagrammatic example of her approach. Collins ingeniously uses the metal frame of the furniture as a matrix, weaving fabric into it in a thick warp/weft structure and allowing it drape freely in between. The work creates an intriguing social situation, in which the two sitters are connected; the fact that only one chair has wheels creates a further implication that one person must be the stable center around which the other moves.