Join The Collection to save, track, and explore works like this.

Sam Falls — Untitled (Thermochromic bench)
Sam Falls

Untitled (Thermochromic bench)

2014

Suspended between painting and phenomenon, Sam Falls's *Untitled (Thermochromic bench)* from 2014 presents itself as both functional object and living image. Constructed from liquid crystal heat-sensitive glass tiles set within a steel frame, the work responds to the body heat of anyone who sits upon it, generating blooms of shifting color across its surface. These chromatic transitions, ranging across the thermochromic spectrum, are neither fixed nor repeatable, making each encounter a discrete and unreproducible event. The work belongs to a broader body of Falls's practice in which natural forces and environmental contact replace the artist's hand as primary authoring agent. Falls, who rose to prominence in the early 2010s alongside a renewed interest in process-based and ecologically responsive art, consistently inverts the traditional hierarchy between maker and material. Here, the viewer completes the work in the most literal sense, their presence written temporarily into the surface before fading as warmth dissipates. This interplay between the indexical trace and its disappearance recalls conceptual precedents while remaining grounded in immediate, sensory experience. The steel armature lends the piece an industrial sobriety that quietly heightens the intimacy of the color's response. Presented through the Public Art Fund, the work carries a provenance rooted in serious institutional engagement, reinforcing its standing as a significant object within Falls's output. For collectors drawn to work that collapses distinctions between sculpture, painting, and relational experience, the bench offers a rare and compelling proposition. Its signed status and material specificity ensure that its credentials are as substantial as its conceptual ambition.

Medium
Liquid crystal heat-sensitive glass tiles, steel
Signed
Yes

Start the Discussion

Request access to join the discussion

About this work

Sam Falls, Untitled (Thermochromic bench), 2014

Suspended between painting and phenomenon, Sam Falls's *Untitled (Thermochromic bench)* from 2014 presents itself as both functional object and living image. Constructed from liquid crystal heat-sensitive glass tiles set within a steel frame, the work responds to the body heat of anyone who sits upon it, generating blooms of shifting color across its surface. These chromatic transitions, ranging across the thermochromic spectrum, are neither fixed nor repeatable, making each encounter a discrete and unreproducible event. The work belongs to a broader body of Falls's practice in which natural forces and environmental contact replace the artist's hand as primary authoring agent. Falls, who rose to prominence in the early 2010s alongside a renewed interest in process-based and ecologically responsive art, consistently inverts the traditional hierarchy between maker and material. Here, the viewer completes the work in the most literal sense, their presence written temporarily into the surface before fading as warmth dissipates. This interplay between the indexical trace and its disappearance recalls conceptual precedents while remaining grounded in immediate, sensory experience. The steel armature lends the piece an industrial sobriety that quietly heightens the intimacy of the color's response. Presented through the Public Art Fund, the work carries a provenance rooted in serious institutional engagement, reinforcing its standing as a significant object within Falls's output. For collectors drawn to work that collapses distinctions between sculpture, painting, and relational experience, the bench offers a rare and compelling proposition. Its signed status and material specificity ensure that its credentials are as substantial as its conceptual ambition.

Medium
Liquid crystal heat-sensitive glass tiles, steel
Year
2014
Signed
Hand-signed by the artist
Seen at
Public Art Fund

Related themes

Mohn Art Collective

More works by Sam Falls