Haim Steinbach (B. 1944)

‘All objects are "packaged" to deliver certain meanings. And desire packages everything. When we dress, we package ourselves, our bodies. Every thing and object has a skin through which it speaks. We live in a world, and there are objects in this world. We have feelings about these objects – we project into them, and communicate through them. There is a ritual relationship to these objects that occurs on a daily basis. In primitive societies, objects may be found on the ground, literally, strewn about the place as in a "natural" state. But in our advanced industrial Western society, objects are found on consoles, on tables, on countertops. These counters and tables are vehicles of presentation; they are objects, they have functions, but they also have skins, histories ... Something happens when you put an object on one of those support structures’ (H. Steinbach, quoted in interview with J. Decter, Journal of Contemporary Art, Vol. 6 No. 2, 1992).