Abstract
What do Velisek's chair mean? The chair for him is not the empty or mundane signifier one might assume, but a carrier of information about how we see the people as distinct from another; not seated in a row, as masses gather in a stadium, but separate and different. Each chair is a kind of portrait.
Due to Velisek's incredibly skilful rendering, the chair paintings function as highly detailed testimonies to the existence of the item in question. Here, the question posed by Velisek is an ontological one: what makes a chair , or, indeed, a painting? What is the nature of its existence? This is a question of the difference between being and representation.