Two Practices, Four Words, Multiple Questions
An Introduction to the Exhibition Catalog
There is an architecture that is not aimed at the voracious mass. An
architecture that exists indifferent to the latest trends, created as the
utmost act of necessity from its authors. This architecture is the product of
self-reflection, of a deep search for intelligence. It exists as an answer to
the shutting down of intriguing doubts, or extinguishing the flame of
curiosity, and quenches the thirst for knowledge.
This architecture
avoids the distractions of the contemporary media. It stays critical of the
saturation of images, publications and events that deceivingly claim to
announce the zeitgeist of today. This architecture channels all of its efforts
at decoding the essence of the contemporary condition, and although
unmistakably pays attention to the past, it roots its foundations are in the
present with its gaze fixed on the unreachable horizon of the future.
Vehemently autonomous,
this architecture can only exist as the product of a certain stubbornness,
tireless repetition and an inexhaustible faith in methods and strategies that
are yet to be defined and paths that are in the process of being discovered and
perfected.
Analytical and
reflexive, this architecture stands against the erosive overgeneralizations of
a discipline distracted from its inherent duties and intellectual
responsibility. At a glance the potential of this architecture turns
microscopic. Its focus allows studying architecture from impossibly close. A
scrutinizing inspection turns every detail into an encyclopedia, every line drawn
into a map, every collage into an archaeological discovery, every artifact into
a monument. With its sharp focus on every architectural project, lines,
elements, components and ideas become transcendental pieces of a discourse
still in formation, of a theory still under development.
This architecture is
obsessed with architecture. It is obsessed with the intricacies and
contradictions of the discipline; with the power of the built environment and
the legacy of transcendental ideas.
WAI Think Tank and
Ganko are different practices that share this obsession with architecture.
European -founded and Beijing-based, both of these young collectives share an
infatuation with architecture that undoubtedly determines their way to
practice, think and operate. But, while this shared obsession might suggest the
beginning of an endless list of mirroring similarities, it’s the differences,
the contrasts and contradictions between WAI and Ganko that motivates this
exhibition.
Cadavre Exquis
As the title of the
exhibition suggests, the idea of an all-encompassing oversimplifying theme able
to sweep any obvious difference under the deceiving carpet of homogeneity has
been discarded in order to give way to a display of two practices with a broad
range of contrasting fields of action, objects of attention, and
representational methods. Walls, Islands, Frames, Mirrors works like a cadavre
exquis, as four concepts are brought in independently from each other, in order
to summon a form of curatorial experiment based on the fragmentation,
variation, tension and contradictions of the ideas and concepts exhibited.
Following that current of thought, four concepts open up the possibility of
being read either as straightforward descriptions of elements, objects and
artifacts or as allegorical nuances of the concepts that surround them. Walls,
Islands, Frames, Mirrors propose a new dialogue between projects and practices,
while suggesting the possibility of fresh interpretations from the observers
who suddenly become part of a developing conversation between works that might
not speak in the same language.
The tension between
projects and subjects, exhibition and public, adds up to the friction already
established among the four concepts of an exhibition title that could echo the
ideas, theories, manifestoes, critiques, and narratives that are presented in
video format, line drawings, collages, photomontages, scale models, and spatial
objects.
However, we are left
wondering if those Walls, Islands, Frames and Mirrors are clear transcriptions
of pieces and elements to be found in the exhibition, or if they are
reflections of the complexity of symbols and meanings to be found in the work
of WAI and Ganko? AreWalls, Islands Frames, Mirrors a game of words, or words
for play?
A closer inspection of
each concept reveals blunt straightforwardness without necessarily closing down
the doors of a maze of possible interpretations that seems to point in every
direction. If it’s true that Walls can be found in projects by both, WAI and
Ganko, there are also metaphoric walls that can be drawn by interpretation;
walls that exclude and delimit, but also walls that create possibilities and
programs. There is a wall that encircles ‘Atlas’, the Orwellesque city in the
final part of WAI’s architectural narrative ‘Blindness’, and also there are
walls encircling the palm trees on Ganko’s Two Rooms competition proposal in
Bahrain. Are these ‘real’ or allegorical walls? Do they relate to each other,
and if so, how do they interact in the realm of concepts? One wall appears
sinister, intimidating, the other appears as an oasis of potential and
possibilities. Is one wall a critique? And if so, where are its critical darts
headed? Is the other wall an answer? If so, what is the problematic it tries to
address?
The Walls are not the
only concepts that raise intriguing questions. Where are the islands in this
exhibition? Are the Islands a reference to a specific project or just a
metaphor of two groups (or performative archipelagoes) that seem to float
independently of the continental bodies of the architectural discourse? Are the
islands really independent bodies? Or are they just objects of conflict? Are
these islands oceanic or continental?
No questions have been
answered and there are frames and mirrors still to be discussed. Frames, which
seem to be at first glance a simple, concrete concept, also open a span of
possible readings. Are these frames singling out any view, idea, theory,
discourse? Frames delimit the sight, direct the attention to pictures, details,
zones. Movie frames freeze motion pictures into still pictures, creating the
possibility of completely new readings independent from the film. Frames can
also make the banal an object of contemplation, and subject of desire. Frames
are powerful tools that belong together with the history of museology and art
collecting. Are these frames a reference to an architectural strategy, an
exhibition method, an idea, an object? What are these frames showing? What are
they leaving out of their encompassing capabilities? What has been excluded out
of the dominance of the frame?
Which precisely bring
us to the last set of questions: are these frames holding mirrors? Are the
mirrors an allegory to a series of projects that seem to be everything but
reflections of each other? Does the mirror provide distorted reflections or
does it accurately legitimize what is seen in it? Is the mirror a project, an
idea, or, is the mirror just laid out for the observer to find himself in each
of the projects?
Walls, Islands, Frames,
Mirrors leaves multiple questions deliberately unanswered. These four words are
also an invitation to the public to figure out what they imply, while
acknowledging that they are not catchy phrases to satisfy the voracious mass or
to content the contemporary media.
Exhibition catalog edited by:
Cruz Garcia
Nathalie Frankowski
Guido Tesio
Hao Chen
Ronald Frankowski
Posts
