David Diao's painting Bauhaus Still Looking to De Stijl just landed on the cover of Art in America's fall issue. From his New York studio, he explained why a designer's profile and a famous chair became the subjects of an abstract work that's anything but random.
"You might say what I do is image mongering," Diao said. "I'm looking for things that have a metaphorical meaning or a history, and I use them as subjects for my work." The distinction matters to him. His abstractions aren't pure form—they're rooted in specific moments and movements, carrying weight that goes beyond the canvas.
The painting references two pivotal design movements: Bauhaus and De Stijl. On the left sits the profile icon of Bauhaus, designed by Vilmos Huszár, which appears in nearly every history book on the movement. On the right is Gerrit Rietveld's iconic Red Blue Chair, though Diao removed the black struts, asking viewers to complete the image in their minds.
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Start Your News DetoxThe connection runs deeper than visual similarity. "People in the Bauhaus became De Stijl members—Huszár was even involved with De Stijl," Diao explained. "And I've always thought of Rietveld as being as important as any artist, even though he's known as a chair designer and an architect." He owns several Rietveld pieces, including one he acquired in the 1960s by trading a Moroccan rug with an artist named Gary Hudson.
Color became Diao's storytelling tool here. He painted the background blue to substitute for the missing blue of the original chair in the image he was referencing. "In this case, there's some incident in that background—it's not absolute flat blue," he noted. The choice was deliberate: color carries meaning, and flatness would have erased it.
The painting resonated enough that Diao created a lithograph version in 2019. "I liked this image enough that I wanted to have more versions of it out in the world," he said. His approach to the work carries a lightness too. "Humor is a great thing to have, because this isn't life or death."
That balance—between historical weight and creative play—is what gives his abstractions their grip. They ask viewers to see design history not as a museum artifact, but as something alive, worth returning to, worth reimagining.
