Parallax Views on Architecture: Curating Architecture
Montag, 18. März 2013 - 19:00 Uhr
Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien
Curating Architecture | Elke Krasny Penser tout Haut. Faire l'Architecture, Centre de Design, UQAM, Montréal, 2010, curator: Elke Krasny, photograph: Michel Brunelle
Exhibitions of architecture are at once discursive, spatial and aesthetic operations. As a format, exhibitions are temporary. As a discursive constellation, exhibitions drive the making of architectural history and architectural theorization, and equally important, contribute to the general understanding and the theorization of the field in its current discussions.
In this lecture I will draw both on historic and contemporary references of exhibited architecture addressing the issues of curatorial knowledge production on/of/with/about/alongside with architecture and the issues of scale with regard to different modes of exhibiting. The examples include my own work, in particular the research processes for The Force is in the Mind. The Making of Architecture (Architecture Centre Vienna 2008) and its consequent transformation into Penser Tout Haut. Faire l'Architecture (Centre de Design, UQAM, Montréal)as well as Hands-On Urbanism 1850-2012. The Right to Green (Architecture Centre Vienna 2012 and Venice Biennale 2012) I will reflect on my own practice as a curator of architecture and urbanism to discuss my role as the curator as an ethnographer and what I would like to call the conversational turn in curating. Exhibitions are sites of exchange that require curators to (re)think and (re)shape the processes of knowledge production in dialogue with the architecture, the architects and the public.
Elke Krasny is Senior Lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. In 2006 she was Visiting Professor at the University of Bremen. In 2012 she was Visiting Scholar at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montréal.
Her research-based practice deals with contemporary architecture, urban transformation, politics of remembrance, socially engaged art practices, feminist historiography, and politics of migration. The results are presented in exhibitions, walks, symposia, essays and books.
In 2008 she presented The Force is in the Mind. The Making of Architecture at the Architecture Centre Vienna (Architekturzentrum Wien) which led to Penser tout Haut. Faire l'Architecture (Thinking out Loud. The Making of Architecture) at the Centre de Design de l'UQAM in Montréal and Dalhousie University in Halifax.
As curator-in-residence of the Hongkong Community Museum Project in 2011 she realized the walks Hongkong City Telling. As artist-in-residence she curated the exhibition Mapping the Everyday: Neighborhood Claims for the Future in collaboration with the Downtown Eastside Women Centre at the Audain Gallery Vancvouver in 2011-2012.
In 2012 her exhibition Hands-on Urbanism 1850-2012. The Right to Green was presented at the Architecture Centre Vienna and subsequently invited by David Chipperfield to partake in the Central Pavillion of the Architecture Biennale in Venice in 2012.
Books:
- Hands-on Urbanism 1850-2012. The Right to Green, Elke Krasny, Architekturzentrum Wien (eds.), MCCM Creations Hongkong, 2012
- The Force is in the Mind. The Making of Architecture, Elke Krasny, Architekturzentrum Wien (eds.), Basel Boston Berlin Birkhäuser Publishers 2008
- Stadt und Frauen. Eine andere Topographie von Wien, Metro Verlag 2008
Parallax Views on Architecture
Parallax is the displacement or difference in the apparent position of an object caused by a new line of sight. We all use this difference to gain depth perception. Astronomers use it to define the distance and outline of far away objects. Meanwhile Slavoj Zizek argues that the parallax gap causes not only an "epistemological" shift in the subject's point of view, but always reflects an "ontological" shift in the object itself, as subject and object are inherently mediated.
In seeking the oscillation between focus and productive indeterminacy, this year's lecture series at the Institute of Art and Architecture examines the production of space from multiple points of view. And as nearby objects have a larger parallax than distant ones, we invite artists and researchers working in our immediate proximity-artists and researchers within the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna-who look at the subject of architecture and urbanism implicitly or explicitly in their work. As a result the lecture series will offer an array of alternate positions coexisting within the Academy and create a platform for transdisciplinary discussions at the intersection between art and architecture. (Stefan Gruber)
Lectures:
18.03.2013 Elke Krasny, Curator
15.03.2013 Andreas Spiegl, Theorist
25.04.2013 Nicole Timm, Scenographer
27.05.2013 Franz Pomassl, Sound Artist
10.06.2013 Moira Hille, Artist