Press Release:
Showcasing the work of Viennese architecture firm COOP HIMMELB(L)AU from the past 40 years, the highly designed, internationally touring exhibition COOP HIMMELB(L)AU: Beyond the Blue makes its U.S. debut at the Wexner Center April 2–July 26, 2009. First conceived and presented at the MAK, a leading museum of contemporary art and design in Vienna, this multimedia show marks the most comprehensive museum exhibition to date of the firm’s work. It will include approximately 200 architectural models, displayed as an urban landscape on raised platforms with choreographed lighting, graphics, and a film (featuring interviews with COOP design principal Wolf D. Prix) in a rich visual experience recalling an urban landscape plan. A model of the show as it appeared at the MAK will be included, as will a model of the COOP-designed Akron Art Museum addition in a “HIMMELB(L)AU in Ohio” section. Jeffrey Kipnis, professor of architecture at Ohio State’s Knowlton School of Architecture and the Wexner Center’s former curator of architecture and design, is the exhibition’s consulting curator.
Notes Wexner Center Director Sherri Geldin, “The Wexner Center has a longstanding commitment to presenting the work of bold and innovative architects in dynamic installation contexts. Having seen this remarkable retrospective of COOP HIMMELB(L)AU in Vienna, I was convinced that it could be creatively reconfigured for the Wex, allowing our audiences to appreciate the unique philosophy and design practice that has characterized HIMMELB(L)AU’s work over decades.”
As Kipnis writes in the catalogue, this exhibition “constitutes an explicit critique by COOP HIMMELB(L)AU of urban planning today….demonstrating how easy it would be to make something much better, if only we had the courage.”
More info: wexarts.org
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