POP: Protocols, Obsessions, Positions

Perry Kulper, storefront, a cosmology, 2012. From Aesthetics/Anestetics, 2012. Storefront for Art and Architecture.

POP: Protocols, Obsessions, Positions, investigates what constitutes a position in architecture today and how that might be generated through the architect’s drawing. The exhibition presents 30 original drawings of the Storefront gallery space at 97 Kenmare Street by an international group of architects asked to go “from protocols, to obsessions, to positions.” As an image based on codes and systems of representation that establish a space of legibility between inherited and new forms, the architectural drawing tends to operate either as a technical tool of communication based on protocols and codes or in a diametrically opposed spectrum as an artistic device completely detached from the constraints of architectural practice. While one end of the spectrum is overcharged by the need to communicate, the complex or mysterious beauty of illegibility haunts the other. While protocols engage with a disciplinary temporality and obsessions are usually atemporal, positions address timely, current issues beyond those typically addressed in the discipline of architecture or an architect’s body of work. Architects include: Ada Tolla & Giuseppe Lignano -LOT-EK -[New York]; Adam Frampton [Hong Kong -New York]; Amale Andraos -Work AC- [New York]; Ania Jaworska; Another Pamphlet [New York]; Arturo Scheidegger & Ignacio García Partarrieu -UMWELT-(Santiago); Bernard Tschumi [New York]; Caroline O’Donnell –CODA- [Ithaca]; Eric Owen Moss [Los Angeles]; Fernando Romero -FREE- [Mexico-NY]; Filipe Magalhaes + Ana Luisa Soares - fala atelier - [Oporto]; Form_ula [New York]; Gia Wolf [New York]; Hayley Eber -EFGH- [New York]; Hedwig Heinsman –DUS- [Rotterdam]; James Wines [New York]; Juan Herreros [Madrid]; KPF [New York]; Lola Sheppard -Lateral Office- [Toronto]; Marcelo Spina and Georgina Huljich -P-A-T-T-E-R-N-S- [Los Angeles]; Mark Shepard [Buffalo]; Michel Rojkind [Mexico DF]; Michele Marchetti -Sanrocco- [Milan]; Neil Spiller [London]; Rafi Segal [New York]; Stan Allen [New York]; Thomas Kelley [Buffalo]; Veronika Valk [Tallinn]; Viviana Peña – Ctrl G- [Medellin]; and Yansong Ma -MAD- [Beijing]; among others. On the Facade David Molander, a Stockholm based artist, has been invited by Storefront for Art and Architecture to design a site-specific photographic work titled "New York Positions", specially designed for the exhibition POP [Protocols, Obsessions, Positions]. Mixed and intertwined with other urban portraits, this installation presents a large-scale image of the events related to the Occupy Wall Street Movement in September 2011 covering the interior facade of the gallery in its entirety. Through special configurations of the facade panels, the piece will create a dialogue with the same New York that witnessed the events, as well as with the 30 representations of Storefront's gallery included in the POP exhibition. While POP investigates what constitutes a position in architecture today and how that might be generated through the architect’s drawing, "New York Positions" reflects on the configurations of sociopolitical positions of the contemporary urban space. POP is Storefront’s second annual architectural drawing show that aims to contribute and transform our understanding of architectural drawings in the 21st century. The drawings on display at the exhibition will be auctioned at the close of the exhibition and proceeds will support Storefront’s exhibitions and programs. www.storefrontnews.org