The Westport Arts Center, in partnership with Westport Arts Advisory Committee, Friday opens “Tête-à-Tête: Reinventing the Conversation Bench,” a new project that combines exhibition, competition and place-making.
The exhibition, which will be on view through March 16, launches with an opening reception from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Westport Arts Center, 51 Riverside Ave.
Jurists for the project are John Edelman (CEO, Design Within Reach), Patricia Kane (Curator of American Decorative Arts, Yale University Art Gallery), and Paul Goldberger (Pulitzer Prize-winning American architecture critic and educator).
The exhibition features artists who re-imagine and reinvent the Victorian-era conversation bench — also known as a “tête-à-tête,” courting bench, conversation bench, kissing bench and gossip’s chair.
This unique piece of French furniture emerged in the 19th century, and translates to “head-to-head,” describing the early functionality of these seats during the Victorian era, an announcement said.
The traditional tête-à-tête seat features chairs with S-shaped, curved backs facing opposite directions that share a center armrest. Early tête-à-tête pieces were designed to enhance many kinds of discrete yet intimate conversations such as courtship.
“The project is envisioned as a symbolic way to encourage conversation and civility within our community,” the announcement said.
“The exhibition aims to foster dialogue in these polarized times — as people sit, talk and listen, their understanding and tolerance of each other will organically improve.”
Ultimately, the winning bench design may be fabricated and find a home along the Saugatuck River, be an installation piece that travels around town, or become part of Westport’s Permanent Art Collection (WestPAC), the announcement said.
