Architecture Archives - longlistshort

Throwback- NYC Art Shows- Terence Gower’s “El Muro Rojo (Barragán)” from Galerie Lelong’s “Color Effects”

Architecture, Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Conceptual Art, Installation Art, New York Art Shows, Photographers / Photography

Aug 152024

The images above are of Terence Gower’s El Muro Rojo (Barragán), 2005, from the group exhibition Color Effects at Galerie Lelong in NYC last year.

From the artist’s website about the work-

A large black and white photograph of the roof patio of the Casa Barragán is mounted on an enormous red wall. The photograph is a copy of Armando Salas Portugal’s famous 1953 photograph (this time commissioned from architectural photographer Jorge del Olmo), and shows a corner of Luis Barragán’s roof patio with its famous coloured walls reduced to grey tones. The work separates a tonal and planar understanding of the architecture from the “emotional” encounter with colour that Barragán aspired to.

From his statement about his practice-

I work on a number of bodies of work at once, each developed over several years. In the past decade my work has focused on a critical re-reading of the modern movement and its utopian bent. A desire to reexamine the notion of progress—a term corrupted by the excesses of technological modernism—has fueled my research on the post-war period and has led to a search for models from the past that might still be relevant today.

Below is the Armando Salas Portugal color photograph referenced by Gower’s work.

Armando Salas Portugal, “Barragán House”, Mexico City, 1948. View of the roof terrace in the late 1960s. Image via Barragan Foundation

Armando Salas Portugal is known for his photographs of the Mexican countryside and the architecture of the city. He captured the work of several famous architects, in addition to Luis Barragán’s projects.

From Wikipedia about the influence of modernism on Barragán and his concept of “emotional architecture“-

Barragán visited Le Corbusier and became influenced by European modernism. The buildings he produced in the years after his return to Mexico show the typical clean lines of the Modernist movement. Nonetheless, according to Andrés Casillas (who worked with Barragán), he eventually became entirely convinced that the house should not be “a machine for living.” Opposed to functionalism, Barragán strove for an “emotional architecture” claiming that “any work of architecture which does not express serenity is a mistake.” Barragán used raw materials such as stone or wood. He combined them with an original and dramatic use of light, both natural and artificial; his preference for hidden light sources gives his interiors a particularly subtle and lyrical atmosphere.

California Art- Albert Frey’s “Aluminaire House” at Palm Springs Art Museum

Architecture, Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, California Art Shows, Palm Springs Art Shows, Public Art

Aug 152024

After seeing the Albert Frey exhibition at Palm Springs Art Museum Architecture and Design Center, you can visit his recently unveiled Aluminaire House near the museum’s main location. It’s incredible at every angle as it reflects its surroundings.

The structure has an interesting history. Before it arrived in Palm Springs, it was rebuilt on architect Wallace Harrison’s property in Huntington, Long Island where it remained from 1931 until 1987. From 1988-2012, it was partially rebuilt on New York Institute of Technology’s Central Islip campus before being dismantled and stored in a trailer.

From the museum-

Designed by Albert Frey, Aluminaire House is one of the first examples of European-style modernist architecture in the United States. Built in 1931 as a full-scale model house for a temporary exhibition, it was intended to be a prototype of mass-produced housing, factory made with modern materials. Composed primarily of aluminum, steel, and glass, it was an experiment in realizing a democratic ideal in architecture of creating affordable, well-designed homes using modern industrial methods and materials. Palm Springs Art Museum acquired the Aluminaire House to add to its rich holdings by Albert Frey, who spent most of his life and career in Palm Springs.

California Art Shows- “Albert Frey: Inventive Modernist” at Palm Springs Art Museum’s Art and Design Center

Architecture, Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, California Art Shows, California Travel, Palm Springs, Salton Sea

Aug 142024

Frey House I (1940) as pictured in House & Garden magazine, January 1948

More images of Frey House I

Palm Springs is famous for its mid-century modern architecture and architect Albert Frey played a large part in creating that legacy. Palm Springs Art Museum’s Architecture and Design Center’s Albert Frey: Inventive Modernist celebrates his career with a creatively curated show filled with an extensive collection of historical photographs.

From the museum-

Albert Frey (American, born Switzerland, 1903-1998) helped to establish Palm Springs as a world-recognized center for modern architecture and design. He was the first architect to design a modern International Style structure for Palm Springs and paved the way for modern architecture and the architects that followed.

Steeped in early European modernism, Frey’s adroit handling of low-cost and low-maintenance industrial materials, sublime desert color combinations, and appealing geometric compositions give him a unique and permanent place in the idiom of “desert modernism” and succinctly expressed his two greatest loves—nature and architecture.

His mark on Palm Springs is indelible and includes such recognized icons as the Palm Springs City Hall, Fire Station #1, The Palm Springs Visitors Center, The Palm Springs Aerial Tramway Valley Station, The Loewy House, and his final home, known as Frey House II, as well as hundreds of other notable projects.

“….the sun, the pure air and the simple forms of the desert create perfect conditions for architecture.”

Albert Frey in a letter to Le Corbusier, 1935 about Palm Springs

More selections from the exhibition below-

In 1937, Frey left California to join the staff of Philip Goodwin who was commissioned to design the new Museum of Modern Art in New York. The museum has included documentation, photos and a model of the building- pictured above.

Above are stills taken from North Shore Yacht Club (1958), a promotional video for the structure that Frey built when the Salton Sea was a thriving resort destination. The refurbished building is now used for community events in Mecca, California.

The Tramway Gas Station, pictured above, is now the location of the Official Palm Springs Visitor Information Center.

From the museum-

At the same location where some 23 years earlier Clark & Frey had designed the graceful stone entry gates to Palm Springs, Frey created another welcoming structure-the Tramway Gas Station, a bold and assertive monument. Architecturally speaking, its roof offers a hyperbolic paraboloid design. Its cantilever suggests a spectacular soaring bird and indicates that visitors were entering a decidedly mid-century modern, forward-thinking city. About its genesis Frey said, “When you think about what nature produces in fantastic forms, in birds and animals-that’s where creativity comes in.”

In 1996 the building was approved by the city for demolition, sparking the beginning of the mid-century preservation movement in Palm Springs. The building was saved by those who bravely stood up for and championed its daring artistry, its physical representation of a moment in time and place, and the legacy of Albert Frey.

This exhibition closes 8/18/24.

If you are a modernism fan, every year Palm Springs celebrates Modernism Week- this year with a four day event in October and next year a week long event in February.

Paul Davies at Palm Springs Museum of Art

Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Painting / Painters, Palm Springs Art Shows

Jul 202023

Built Landscape I, 2015, by Paul Davies, was included in Palm Springs Art Museum’s 2018 group exhibition, Eighty @ Eighty.

From the museum’s wall plaque-

Through a rich process of layering, mirroring, and mimicking, Davies explores the fusion of manmade and cultivated natural elements that comprise our environment. Reflecting a contemporary Southern California sensibility, his paintings are at once a dream of an idealized lifestyle made popular by midcentury modern architecture, and a commentary on how such structures interact with and fragment the world around us. This image references the unique periscope-like structure of architect Albert Frey’s first home in Palm Springs.

Davies’ work can currently be seen as part of Stark White gallery’s exhibition Surface Tension in Queenstown, New Zealand, on view until 8/20/23.

NYC Art Shows- Uta Barth at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery

Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Conceptual Art, Digital Art, Installation Art, New York Art Shows, Photographers / Photography

Apr 192023

“…from dawn to dusk, (January)”, 2022

“…from dawn to dusk, (May)”, 2022

“…from dawn to dusk, (December)”, 2022

“white blind (bright red) (02.13)”, 2002

“white blind/bright red (02.6)”, 2002

“Untitled (98.5)”, 1998

From “nowhere near” Untitled (NW 18), 1999

“… and to draw a bright white line with light (Untitled 11.10)”, 2011

Uta Barth’s two part exhibition at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery is a fascinating look at the artist’s work. It includes the New York debut of her most recent piece, …from dawn to dusk, a nearly 360-degree installation of images commissioned by the J. Paul Getty Trust.

From the press release-

Barth’s expansive 2022 series … from dawn to dusk focuses on the intersection of Southern California light with the architecture of the Getty Center. It traces the changing light at one location of the Richard Meier built campus, for the period of one year. The location was photographed every five minutes, from dawn to dusk, on two days each month, for the entirety of the year. Made with a GigaPan, over 64,000 images were captured and a Timelapse video sequence now shows the progression of this movement of light. As the view repeats from panel to panel, there are subtle changes in light as well as more dramatic blurring and color shifts, which invoke inverted optical afterimages and other visual phenomena that occur when staring at a fixed point for a prolonged period of time. Presented as twelve consecutive single views, the video is embedded among the still images of the installation, and it comes as a surprise to discover what one first assumes to be a still photograph to actually be the moving summation of the show.

In the upstairs galleries, Elizabeth Smith’s selection of work reveals the foundations of the artist’s renowned and influential practice, as well as the trajectory that led to the explorations found in …from dawn to dusk. Elizabeth Smith shared her thoughts on Barth’s practice as she approached this exhibition:

It’s been almost thirty years since I worked with Uta Barth to present her first solo museum show at MOCA in 1995. In relation to her newest project, the gallery’s invitation to select some key examples from both her early series and subsequent ones has offered a welcome opportunity to reengage with and consider the full trajectory of her work. From her earliest to her most recent photographs, Barth’s practice has centered on a nuanced investigation of visual experience, free from narrative. Light, color, the passage of time, and the shifting nature of the process of vision through bodily experience are the ongoing subjects of her resonant images, probed in various ways over decades.

Throughout her career, Uta Barth has made visual perception the subject of her work. Regarded for her “empty” images that reference painterly abstraction, the artist carefully renders blurred backgrounds, cropped frames and the natural qualities of light to capture incidental and fleeting moments, those which exist almost exclusively within our periphery. With a deliberate disregard for both the conventional photographic subject and the point-and-shoot role of the camera, Barth’s work delicately deconstructs conventions of visual representation by calling our attention to the limits of the human eye.

As Leah Ollman writes in her recent Los Angeles Times profile of the artist,

From her earliest years as an artist, Barth’s attention has been drawn to the eye’s behavior: what attracts it, what makes it stay, what causes it to double back, what generates after-images and optical fatigue. Learning to photograph was, for her, a way of learning to see.

This exhibition closes 4/22/23.

NYC Art Shows- Stefan Kürten and Rita McBride at Alexander and Bonin

Art, Artists, Conceptual Art, Drawing, Fiber Arts, Installation Art, Mixed Media, New York Art Shows, Painting / Painters, Sculptors / Sculpture

Mar 232023

Stefan Kürten, “We are all made of stars”, 2013

Stefan Kürten, “Running to Stand Still”, 2014

Stefan Kürten, “Running to Stand Still”, 2014 (detail)

Stefan Kürten, “Fine Wrinkles”, 2000

Rita McBride, “Mae West Mandala (Oaxaca), 2009 and “Color Test (Green Bar)”, 2009

Stefan Kürten’s paintings of houses and Rita McBride’s wall coverings (and other sculptures) work with each other to question the concept of home, as well as the objects you might find within one. The exhibition, titled I Continue To Live In My Glass House, is on view at Alexander and Bonin until 3/25/23.

From the press release-

Stefan Kürten is known for detailed depictions of homes. Although constructed from both found and invented imagery, his homes feel known or experienced. The slippage between archetypes, memories, and dreams are central to his compositions. Set in lush landscapes and mysteriously unpeopled, Kürten’s homes evoke modern art or design museums with iconic sculptures and furniture viewable inside and outside of their transparent walls.

Rita McBride’s work invites us to reconsider structures and design elements such as ductwork, awnings, wall coverings and other utilitarian objects. McBride represents a bentwood chair in Murano glass, fastened together by a material that evokes spun candy or plastic wrap. Chair (1999) comments on the life of a domestic object whose usage necessitates an inventive approach to repair or stabilization.

McBride is also showing Particulates, an art installation that combines lasers with ambient dust and water molecules, will be on view at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles starting 3/27/23.

Daniel Rich at Miles McEnery Gallery 2020

Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, New York Art Shows, Painting / Painters

Dec 172022

“Tower, Houston”, 2020

“Tower, Houston”, 2020 (closer look)

“City Square at 4 am (Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana, Large Version)”, 2020

“Midtown, NYC”, 2020

The paintings above are from Daniel Rich’s 2020 exhibition at Miles McEnery Gallery in NYC.

From the gallery’s press release-

Daniel Rich’s reticulated cityscapes and slick façades appear at first glance to be quite literally superficial. Whether it is a geometric exterior pressed close to the picture plane or a cluster of multiple structures glimpsed from a distance, we experience architecture in his painting as a wholly exteriorized phenomenon— looming close up or made smaller through a bird’s-eye view.

His process-oriented paintings offer windows to different parts of the world— some figuratively, others much more literally—and can evoke a distorted experience of temporality for the viewer. Like compositions by Bernd and Hilla Becher or Andreas Gursky, Rich’s artworks offer clinical, complex architectural views onto the world that are filled with subtleties. However, Rich differs from Becher or Gursky in his painstaking, intricate process of translating found images into painting. The works also evoke early 20th century European Modernism, recalling Giorgio de Chirico’s metaphysical cityscapes and Germany’s Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) artists of the 1920s and 1930s.

Architecture, as it is commonly understood, is designed and implemented to house the human and is itself the manifestation of our constructed realities. When all signs of life are missing from buildings and spaces, as in Rich’s paintings, the result is an unsettling subversion that upends and questions what we have come to expect of both architectural spaces and the organized linearity of time. Rich probes viewers to consider what lies beyond the surface.

Rich also uses his anonymous architectural imagery to talk about history and politics. He speaks of his scenes as “failed utopias” and “changing political power structures.” In their seeming permanence, the fixed and rigid edifices that populate his work speak to a late capitalist urbanism that sees its monuments not as contingent, but as immovable and eternal.

His newest paintings are currently on view at the gallery for his exhibition Flat Earth on view until 1/28/23.

Dunedin Fine Art Center- Current Exhibitions- Janos Enyedi, Dunedin Mosaic House, and “We Built This City”

Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Ceramic Art, Conceptual Art, Drawing, Dunedin, Florida Art Shows, Installation Art, Mixed Media, Painting / Painters, Photographers / Photography, Pinellas County, Sculptors / Sculpture

Dec 032022

Study for Milltown Icon, 2003

Dunedin Fine Art Center is currently showing three exhibitions based on the theme of Architecture. The images above are from Rust to Rust: Janos Enyedi and the Architecture of Industry. The work combines painting, photography, and sculpture. Parts of his work appear to be metal but are actually constructed using illustration board. His creations are an impressive exploration of the fading industrial landscape of America’s Rust and Steel Belts.

Janos Enyedi’s discussion of his work in 2009 (from the gallery’s wall information)-

“While I have a special affection for industrial landscapes, it is not industry itself that captures my imagination. What draws my attention is the simplicity and directness of the industrial architecture and the elements that support it.

Nowhere else is the Modernist tenet “form follows function” as explicit. The realm of industry is filled with large iconic shapes- water towers, smokestacks, complex steel structures, monitor roofs, images that we all know.

Most people, if they bother to look at industry at all, see large, dirty hulks. I see other things. There is an old saying, “The Devil is in the details”.

When it comes to industry, I see “Angels” in the details. I see I-beams and angle iron and the shadows they cast on corrugation: torch-cut edges, the staccato of rivets, the patterns of safety plate and rust- always the rich, amazing and beautiful patina of rust.”

The exhibition also includes works that allow you to see a bit of his creative process, including some of his sketches.

Also on view is We Built This City, a multi-media exhibition of work that “investigates the connection between Architecture and Music- conceptually, loosely, physically-poetically”.