“Wurst” bench
by General Life · London, United Kingdom

The WURST bench, created by General Life production house, is a scagliola phallus inspired by the texture of German sausages and the form of beached whales, on a set of ebonised conical feet.
The WURST bench is the headline work to come out of Workbook I, the launch collection of the dirty luxury brand General Life. This collection is inspired by, amongst other things; the dirty sports sock like presence of a dead whale on a beach in Dorset; the fundamentals of daily rural life; the very modern contradictions and excesses of the Georgians; German hospitality expressed through the boiled sausage; Gaudi’s brave and joyful juxtaposition of materials and forms; the itinerancy of modern life; the sensuality of the sculpted male body; the building of a colourful beach house in Cambodia; the growing sense of impending catastrophe; the geometry of the cone and the cylinder; Omega Workshops challenge to the position of the artist in the early 20th century; repetition, process and mastery; the fold and the pleat; the comedy of failure; the idea of escape.
General Life flows from the creative practice of Ivan Morison and Heather Peak Morison, capturing significant moments in their artistic process and shaping them into products to be shared.
All of General Life’s work originates in the artist’s studio and is made by hand in its own workshops and in collaboration with a community of small-scale fabricators in the West Midlands – the traditional heartland of British manufacturing.