Drawn to Architecture at Galerie Grita Insam
Project Curated by Vienna 2010
By: Bob Fowler - May 03, 2010
Drawn to Architecture
Galerie Grita Insam
An der Huelben 31010
Wien / AUSTRIA
Tel: 0043 1 512 5330, Fax: DW 15
www.galeriegritainsam.at
Curated by_vienna 2010
The exhibition Drawn to Architecture links
five artistic positions that engage in
different ways with architectural forms
and structures. All of the works have a
decidedly non-mimetic moment in
common: it is not the depiction or
reflection of architecture that is interesting
but the exploration of the recursive
connection between the image of the
space and the space of the image on the
basis of architectural constellations. Amy
Yoes, Karina Nimmerfall, Manuel Knapp,
Ingo Giezendanner and Catherine Borg
each contrast or interlink a work with a
pictorial, drawing-like quality with a
moving image, an animation.
In doing this the artists evoke space that
has an inherent temporal dimension, so
going beyond a simplified triaxial notion
of space. In Drawn to Architecture the
spatial dimension is not entirely a given
and is not simply physically manifested
in the form of architecture: space
constitutes itself more on the basis of
mutual interaction and interferences
between the works, and so is finally
produced by the viewers themselves.
David Komary, Wien 2010 (english
translation: Jonathan Quinn)
CATHERINE BORG
Self-tending is a stop-motion animation in which clear blocks
stack and unstack themselves into different architectures.
The block forms were cast from a crystal clear urethane. When
I cast them I was them unsure of what I would ultimately do
with them but inspired to make them by two things: The first
was a specific site I nicknamed “the Aztec” and that I had been
photographing and video taping for a few years. An actual
recording of the building appears in an earlier 3-channel work
of mine, ADVENTURE NON-FICTION: Tracking the Void, and
its form has been employed in my drawings. But I wasn’t done
with this modern ruin, whose form most resembles Mayan
architecture (not Aztec,) in a decaying Vegas shopping centre.
Simultaneously, I had been collecting information about Las
Vegas casino projects from over many decades that had been
realized in concept, some even in models and sketches, but
never built. One in particular, Xanadu, captured my attention
and in form had some resemblance to “the Aztec.” Informally,
I proposed a public art project to a county official to present a
suite of large translucent models of these projects in the same
traffic median where the welcome to Las Vegas sign appears
on the south end of the Las Vegas Strip. Though very well
received, the project was unfeasible and unrealized. But the
idea to use translucent or clear material to suggest temporal,
elusive or transitory states remained. I was aware that a clear
material that emulated the look of melting ice was provocative
on many levels.
Once the blocks were cast I decided to have them make and
unmake themselves into similar architectures as “the Aztec”
and Xanadu and structures yet imagined. In doing so on a
loop, the suggestion is architecture that can reinvent itself
minus an implosion. Pointing to the role of contemporary
architecture by brand-name architects as the spectacle of the
moment growing out of urban centres around the globe (like
Dubai World or City Centre Las Vegas) the animation playfully
suggests the next development to come in the field of high-end
destinations – spectacular architecture that not only builds itself
but can continually reinvent itself.
MANUEL KNAPP
Light-colored lines overlap, form grids, condense and then
resemble planes: Manuel Knapp used architecture software to
create geometric patterns and shapes, white on a jet-black
background, so that light seems to shine from within them.
Gradually these shapes shift position in relation to one
another, constantly forming different and increasingly
complex spaces. This happens at such a slow pace the details
of their movement can barely be discerned: We are conscious
solely of the flow of change.
As indicated by the title, visibility of interim~, Knapp is
concerned with the “in between,” that section of time and
space between definable states: He expanded the visual
information, rendered at 400 frames per second, to the
normal 25 fps, producing information in the visible range
which wouldn’t be perceived at the original speed due to the
eye’s sluggishness (the afterimage effect).
The effect produced by this constant and seemingly
motionless renewal is unusual: As soon as we think we have
recognized a space with light and shadows in the planes and
lines’ jumble of references, it eludes us.
Central points of view are suggested, but before the eye is
able to explore them, the slanted plane no longer indicates
spatial depth, an imaginary line of sight is eliminated, and
everything changes? and the viewer’s eye has neither a
chance to rest nor escape. In subtle waves, alternately from
the left or right, there is resounding electronic cooing and
crackling. Even the stereophonic echo is misleading.
As a dark architectural fantasy which turns spaces into
buttresses, visibility of interim~ can be seen in the same
category as Piranesi’s prison paintings, and also the oblique
light and shade of German Expressionism. Whether
copperplate engraving, film or digital animation: All forms
give priority to becoming over being.
Maya McKechneay
(english translation: Steve Wilder)
INGO GIEZENDANNER GRRRR
Since 1998, Ingo Giezendanner,
alias GRRRR, has been
documenting the urban spaces in
which he has travelled and lived.
Apart from his native city of
Zurich, his travels have taken him
to diverse cities from New York
and New Orleans to Cairo,
Nairobi, Karachi and Colombo.
Everywhere he travels, he
captures his surroundings on
location with pen on paper. His
drawings have been presented in
numerous magazines, books and
animated films as well as in
spacious installations and
wallpaintings.
Karina Nimmerfall
“Substitute Locations” is an image/text based series documenting filmic locations from the hit TV drama C.S.I., specifically the second camera (establishing shot) footage designed and produced in the environs of Los Angeles, depicted on the show as either Las Vegas, Miami or New York.
The project exists as a new form of documentary, not one whose aim is to portray a supposed “truth” in reality, but instead a work that intends to highlight the possibilities of a fictional space, an area that each day is claimed to be almost more real than reality itself.