TOWARD "ANARCHITECTURE": A Conversation between Architects and Artists

TOWARD "ANARCHITECTURE": A Conversation between Architects and Artists When: 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 19 Where: At The Center This is the third lecture in a multi-part fall series organized by the AIA NY New Practices Committee. Moderator: Farnaz Mansuri, AIA, De-Spec Speakers: Philip Verne (Dia), Joseph Grima (Storefront for Art & Architecture), Alanna Heiss (AIR), Katrin Sigurdardottir (Artist), Hernan Diaz Alonso (Architect), Didier Faustino (architect) CES LUs 1.5; HSW 1.5 Free for members; $10 for non-members http://cfa.aiany.org/index.php?section=calendar&evtid=1174 TOWARD ‘ANARCHITECTURE’ A Conversation between Architects, Artists, historian, curators, critics Matta-Clark stipulated that the term did not imply anti architecture but was, rather, “an attempt at clarifying ideas about space which are personal insights and reactions rather than formal socio-political statements…” Think of the work of the following figures: Friedrich Kiesler, Haus-Rucker, John Hejduk, Gordon Matta Clark, Rachel Whiteread, Maya Lin, Dan Graham, Diller Scofidio+ Renfro, Olafur Eliasson, James Wines, Walter Pichler, Heizer, Archigram, Sol Le Witt, Thomas Saraceno, Greg Lynn, Juan Downey, David Byrne, Gregor Schneider, Alex Amini, Gage/Clemenceau Architects, Urban A&O, Jan Decock, Lo-Tek, Alice Aycock, Didier Faustino and the many more Architects and Artists experimenting with Architecture and Art and essentially blurring those boundaries. For many young architects, their education and that of their instructors have laid the ground work for the way they perceive the process and production of architecture. With changes in technology, theoretical discourse, the competition system, the process and importance of drawing or not, the manufacture of objects, 3D prints, and other rapid prototyping methods, there has been a greater expression of unprecedented form, and for other architects, the theoretical process has lead to more conceptual work or work transgressing other disciplines such as mathematics or computer science. There are also cases where the architectural work is not about form at all and is purely conceptual and/or psychological. While ‘conceptual art’ is evolving rapidly, simultaneously there is also a revival of the architect and work for the sake of itself, not commissioned, and either without utilitarian premises or the pursuit of extremities of utilitarianism. This work often focuses on materiality or is land based or installed, yet it is not ‘installation art’, ‘land art’ nor ‘conceptual art’ so we ask what is it? Art has also made such leaps and changes, the new ‘conceptual art’, ‘land art’ and ‘installation art’, finds itself in territory sometimes more familiar to architects, but the process and approach is vastly different. The Artists making ‘land art’, ‘installation art’ and ‘physical conceptual art’ have done away with many of the more rigid rituals and practices of process, production and geometry and have found far more lucid and active media through what may be considered architectural language. As part of the overall conversation with artists, architects, curators, historian, critics and theoreticians, we aim to expose and evaluate the crossings of paths of these two disciplines once again, now in the 21st century and recognize the changes and cross pollinations through our findings.