It was Socrates in Book X of his Republic who proposed a comparison between painting and the production of furniture.The making of a bed is represented as a human attempt to imitate the original shape of a bed (the ‘absolute, essential bed’). A painting of a bed, on the other hand, is merely a copy, an imitation, simulation of the ‘manifestation’ of the item of furniture produced by human hands. And this later item is alienated fom reality twice over. Any similarity to the bed created by the joiner is flowed, since it is displayed from one side only, from one angle. As such it is deception, illusion, and by being restricted to the representation of the representation it becomes fraud, delusion. In fact it degenerates into mere pretense, plagiarism, a trick; in brief a ‘simulacrum’.

The show ‘All Inclusive’ by Alexander Sokolov is an attempt to reconcile the methodologies of the joiner and of the painter with each other, and especially with the ‘absolute, essential bed’.