Leo Gabin

Booster and 7 studies series / Autobiography, Robert Rauschenberg, 1967-68

thoughts on memory

louise bourgeois / aftersun (2022) / joan didion / phoebe bridgers / carmen maria machado / st vincent / lisa ko

Gordon Matta-Clark. Bingo. 1974

Curator, Laura Hoptman: Gordon Matta-Clark was trained as an architect. His work took on a lot of different guises at the very beginning of his career, at the beginning of the 1960s, and it wasn't till his first cutting experiment in 1971 where he really took on what he called “anarchitecture.” And that is the idea of a kind of literal deconstruction of architecture to see how it was made in conjunction with or in opposition to the human beings who would inhabit it. Narrator: Matta-Clark made Bingo in 1974 by cutting into the facade of a house in Niagara Falls, New York that was slated to be demolished. Laura Hoptman: This was a period of time when a lot of buildings had been condemned or were rotting. So by making an artwork out of these abandoned houses and abandoned industrial sites, he was drawing attention to them. Narrator: He cut through the walls in frame of the house, creating nine equal sized rectangles that resembled the grid of a Bingo game card. This sculpture is made from three of those pieces. Laura Hoptman: So that's why you see some of the interior. And when you see the stairway, you're seeing both the front side and the back side of the facade. Narrator: The artist and a team of assistants worked 12 hours a day for 10 days to cut and remove the facade. Laura Hoptman: And as soon as he and his crew left, the bulldozers came and bulldozed the house.

Gordon Matta-Clark. Bingo. 1974, Building fragments: painted wood, metal, plaster, and glass, three sections, Overall 69" x 25' 7" x 10" (175.3 x 779.8 x 25.4 cm).

Marc Yankus - The Space Between

Empty Lot in The West Village, from the series The Space Between, 2014

Three Blue Windows, from the series The Space Between, 2013.

Side of Building, from the series The Space Between, 2013. 

Building Split, from the series The Space Between, 2013.

 In this series, select historical buildings are portrayed in altered cityscapes and invented spaces that evoke the experience of memory, imagination and dream states playing out in a magical place. Strangely familiar, the buildings are elevated in a fictional composition that appears to tell a story or reflect a past history, but their power resides more in the realm of sensation than explicit narrative. The buildings seem to emerge from the landscape, shaped by the space around them or, in some cases, by the space between them. These surrealistic alterations of New York’s architectural skyline are a cross between imagination and documentation. As portraits, they are meant to reconstitute awareness and preserve the buildings through adjustments in reality and perception.

I’ve always been drawn to the majestic details and materials of classical historical buildings, many of which are hidden from view, tucked behind new architecture, or simply overlooked. Often discovered from rooftops or accessible from private views, I feel compelled to capture the slivers of the old, recreate the buildings to make them whole, and restructure them in place and history. 

Leticia Lampert - (de) construction

(de) construction

The city grows spontaneously. Disordered. Up and down, wherever there is space. Every style is mixed together. There is no development plan for the cities in Brazil, so they become a huge architectonic collage. It is after this perception of the city that this work was created. As a play, collages are made from disconnected pieces of houses and buildings in order to create other ones. These new buildings are strange but, even though, they seem very familiar, once it is like that our perception works. The series consists of 19 collages

(de)constructions #4, Photography and collage, 82 x 130 cm.

(de)constructions #17, Photography and collage, 67 x 100 cm.

Claire Healy & Sean Cordeiro - Not Under my Roof

Not Under My Roof, 2009, Framed Photograph, 100.5 x 106.5 cm; 82.5 x 88.2cm.

Floor of entire farmhouse from Millmerran Queensland, wood, linoleum, 11 x 12 meters, 

Alexa Meyerman

10:25 AM, inkjet : transparency film, 15 x 20 x 15 cm, 2010

This work is based on architectural deconstructions. Like in memories or dreams, every part is reconstructed, leaving an impression of unplanned reality. In some of the work there may be traces of human presence, but they are all empty, or temporarily abandoned. Anything could happen, but nothing does, besides the soundless shifting of elements in a bare, changing and undefined volume. In this way architecture transforms into anarchy of space. You can wander -not hide- in these idle constructions which, in the end, only consist of a rhythm between light and darkness.

11:25 AM, inkjet : transparency film, 29 x 21 x 15 cm, 2011 The transparent photo-objects can be seen as deconstructions. In spite of traces of human presense, what these models have in common is that they are either empty or temporarily abandoned. Like in memories or dreams, the buildings are reconstructed, some details have been emphasised others are dissolving or dissolved. The concepts of interior and exterior become interchangeable.  One can look in and around the objects, and then they will transform, depending on the incidence of light or point of view, which results in the appearance, or disappearance of exits, entrances or rooms. Unavoidably you have to approach the buildings closely, but you cannot hide in these idle constructions, which after all in the end, only consist of light and darkness.

The Grammar of Home

@ The Lord Mayors Pavillion

The Grammar of Home presents moments of domesticity and maps the idea of home, universally held, but the meaning of which is unique to each of us. Home is the space each of us carves out for ourselves- it is in the objects we select, the family we share, and the street we walk everyday. The familiarity of home is both mundane and sublime. In the wake of pandemic when confined to home, and our 2km radius, our collective focus on home, the everyday and our immediate surroundings was heightened. It was through this time that Chris, Colette and Síomha each began their exploration of what constitutes home, and what transforms a building or neighbourhood into home? Through Chris’ interactive work we see a family’s life played out, within familiar games and domestic snap-shots, ……. Colette’s miniature paintings of nostalgic furniture, often found on daft.ie deep-dives, long both for the familiarity of granny’s house and the hope to buy somewhere to create a home. In contrast Síomha’s intimate documentary photography captures the nuanced textures and perspectives of her daily explorations throughout spring 2020. Though often shared and negotiated, home should be a space of sanctuary, of return and comfort. This exhibition is poignant times of war, mass-migration, and the Irish housing-crisis when so many are without a home and striving for its’ security and embrace. ……

Colette Cronin

Colette Cronin, Fireplace

Chris Finnegan,

Síomha Callanan

Ghost Buildings

Hyperallergic

Ghost Buildings and the Inadvertent Beauty of Destruction

Sometimes when one building comes down, the ghost of its architecture is left embedded on its neighbor. These "ghost buildings" as they're s

"It’s short of a shared tone of memory that’s left like breath on a mirror."

Lyon, France 

Newcastle Upon Tyne, England 

Pim Palsgraaf

Pim Palsgraaf, Reflections of Emptiness 07, Wood, stained wallpaper, metal, 190 x 50 x 145 cm, 2021. Pim Palsgraaf is inspired by decay and irregularities in the city. The discord between nature and urbanity are relevant topics and perspectives in meta-modernistic thinking. Palsgraaf’s work is a result of an ever-deepening investigation into the erosion of the inner city. Empty spaces – old corridors and ceilings that are about to collapse and where nature is stepping in to take over – nourish his fascination for this process. In his work Palsgraaf focuses on the lines of  perspective from which we build the world around us. For a while, Palsgraaf worked within the existing systems of how to draw the world around us, but a few years ago he decided, rather, to investigate the fundamentals of the world around us. The fundamentals, according to Palsgraaf, are in how people construct the world around them. This often leads to dualisms in society. Nihilism and consumerism, irony and naive informality live side by side and simultaneously. Palsgraaf decided to investigate his own perception and spent five days in a completely enclosed dark room, without time or noise. It soon became clear to Palsgraaf that time is only a concept, perception a construction of the mind. He decided to continue with these discoveries and to investigate how he could interweave these findings and translate them into his work. His aim is to convey his experiences of time and perception and to bring the viewer into a moment of silence and total doubt, in which all the hold of the world is completely gone.

Pim Palsgraaf, Burn your bridges 13, Wood, stained wallpaper, carton, 40 x 50cm, 2021.

Pim Palsgraaf, Traces of existence, Wood, stained wallpaper, metal, 320 x 180 x 210 cm, 2017.