visual culture research project on urban living heritage, archive and documentation, based on field and case studies.

Result #1

visual culture research project on urban living heritage, archive and documentation, based on field and case studies. The two-story structure is an elegant building, with a stairwell to the second floor, a wide public plaza, and a large central courtyard. The surrounding plaza is an expanse of trees that can be approached from either side. Here, the living spaces are filled with a few exhibition spaces. The architects have decorated the facade with black and white textile wallpaper and a colorful array of patterns, like a toy store. The interior is as inviting as the exterior. A large window, open at one end, gives a panoramic view of a sweeping courtyard, while a corridor leads to a small loft loft at the top. The walls are painted in bright-orange and gray. The floor is covered in synthetic carpeting; the floors are covered in synthetic linoleum; and the ceiling is black. The paint has been applied in a precise, even, but delicate, yellow, and black-blue, which is both soft and reflective.The living and living-room areas are filled with museum artifacts: a large-format photograph of the Maya civilization; a black-and-white photograph of the Soviet interior; a grainy color photograph of the landscape of Soviet Georgia; and a set of three photographs of the design of a popular food store in the Soviet Union. The black-and-white photographs were taken by the architects while they were on a research trip in Georgia. The architecture itself is detailed, even meticulously so, as if the photos were the architects own. But there is no graphic or logical design to this highly personal and personal architecture, which is intentionally eccentric. It is a living environment, a place where the human body, which appears in the photos, is not simply a place of living, but is as important as the environment itself.The photographs were developed by the architects as a kind of research and documentation, as they say in Soviet Union, but the photographs were never exhibited in a museum.

Result #2

visual culture research project on urban living heritage, archive and documentation, based on field and case studies. The work has been shown at the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design in New York and New Yorks Museum of Modern Art, and the show will travel to the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design in Los Angeles in early 2000.The show features more than 400 objects from the collection of the Museum of Modern Art and Design, many of which were not previously displayed in the United States. The curators, Rakesh Agarwal, Marlene Krauss, and Lisa M. Schindler, set out to examine the ways in which objects of everyday use and importance are found and displayed in a museum setting. They began with the MOMA collection of ceramics, working with that material in conjunction with their own archive. From there, the curators assembled a range of objects—from a pair of chisels and a hammer to an aluminum-framed lampstand—that they had assembled from found materials and designed to fit in with their context. The result was a collection that was, in many ways, an integrated part of the museum experience, as the works were assembled together and displayed together in a mosaiclike display.The curators used the MOMA collections collections for their own study. The artists began to look at the objects, identifying the ways in which they functioned as a window onto the history of modern art. In doing so, they began to see how the use of everyday objects to make modern art was an appropriate way to start addressing the issues surrounding the contemporary museum. The result of this research and study was a series of six exhibition-style catalogues organized for the artists, all dating from 1999 and 2000, that included a range of objects that were examined and analyzed.The main objects in the show were sculptures, mostly made by the artist and titled after their uses in the museum.

Result #3

At the same time, the artist continues to work with the same materials and techniques as her subjects—wood, canvas, fiberboard, and masonite—and her works continue to function as fresh gestalts for her questions of, How can I explain to an adult how to live in a way that is appropriate to my age, age group, and sex? What is the significance of using traditional, non-traditional materials and methods in a contemporary, artistic context? What is the significance of adopting a style or way of working that is relevant to our current situation in the 21st century? In this recent show, the works on display—all but one were unprimed, and all but one were dated 2014—were presented in a single installation.Kathryn Lees new works reveal a new side of herself. In some of the works, paintings and drawings were also included, including a collection of small objects, including a small carving of a bird; a photograph of a wall with an old shoe; and a photograph of a sea covered in mud, in which the artist sees her signature birds wing and other threads. All of the objects were titled after the works in the show, including such iconic artists as Louis Kahn and Robert Ryman, as well as notable names as Sade, Dada, and the East Village avant-garde: These works provide a window on the artistic process of making and expressing difference, both in the work itself and in the social context in which it is presented. In this way, Lees work responds to the role of art in contemporary life. If her work stands on its own, it is because of the dedication of its creators and the generosity of their spirit.

Result #4

visual culture research project on urban living heritage, archive and documentation, based on field and case studies. The exhibition was organized in collaboration with the urban cultural center and, in its final form, became a museum-style installation. I had no illusions about the placement of the art, I just wanted to find a place for it. It was not, however, to the neglect of art that the artist had complained; in fact, it was to the exhibition itself. Perhaps this is the only reason why, in order to gain entry to the museum, I had to sign a release.The work in the exhibition, created by constructing a bedsheet from discarded clothing, is a sumptuous assemblage of post-Modernist elements. To me, the fabric of the blanket, which is never used, looks like a natural product of the human body. When I saw the work, I wondered how it would appear in the museum. The blanket in the exhibition could have been hung in the main room, or it could have been tucked into a corner. The blanket was the subject of a recent book by the artist, now in the process of publication, entitled The New Urban Bed. In the exhibition, the exhibition was framed by a series of photographs that evoked the current stage of the development of the human body and of human relations. The images reveal the effect of walking on the body, of the use of different kinds of surfaces in fashioning the body. In one image, the artist photographed a human foot and its imprint on a fabric. The foot is cut in two; the imprints a cross-shaped shape. The artist did not create a permanent imprint, but rather a frame within which the imprint can be seen. In another, the artist juxtaposed a photograph of the same foot with one of a women. The photograph shows the imprint of the leg on the fabric. The women in the second photograph are not visible. If the imprint is not visible, how is it there? The answer lies in the fact that we cannot know how we are made.

Result #5

visual culture research project on urban living heritage, archive and documentation, based on field and case studies. This is the first full-fledged exhibition devoted to such a subject in Chicago.The show, which was also an engaging study of the Chicagos neighborhoods, is organized by Kory Ballysons The Chicagos: An Artist History, University of Chicago Press, 2011, and includes three series of black-and-white photographs documenting the historic developments of the city, including the so-called Guggenheim Museum and the Chicago Art Institute, as well as the citys Public Housing projects. Although the series are designed to give a more detailed view of the neighborhoods, it is important to note that the Guggenheim, Chicago and the Chicago Art Institute buildings were all constructed during the 1940s and 1950s. These images can be seen as a kind of index of the neighborhoods concrete architectural history, as well as a timely reminder of the citys recent history of racial and economic oppression. (In 1980, the Guggenheim gave to the city of Chicago the opportunity to purchase the buildings and to turn them into a museum.)The photographs are arranged chronologically according to their date of production, but one exception to the order of production is the series documenting the Guggenheim. The most remarkable of these series, however, is the series documenting the construction of the Cibachrome poster that covers the walls of the old St. Marks Place section of the city. Here, the artists manipulates the poster to create a piece of sculpture—a carefully rendered window, a plaque, or a plaque, all rendered in a saturated color that mirrors the color of the buildings floorboards.The exhibition is organized into three distinct parts. The first part, which includes photographic and architectural documents, is a series of photographs documenting the construction of the St. Marks Place section of the city. The buildings buildings, at the time of the show, were being built, and these photographs clearly indicate the complex process of construction.