POP: Protocols, Obsessions, Positions

June 19 – July 26, 2013

Opening: June 18, 2013 at 7 pm

 

POP: Protocols, Obsessions, Positions investigated what constitutes a position in architecture today and how that might be generated through the architect’s drawing. This exhibition presented 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.

 

The online auction is now closed. 

 

POP presented thirty drawings by thirty architects that addressed both ends of the architectural drawing spectrum, understanding its codes and protocols and deploying the personal obsession of each architect in the articulation of a position now. Architects included: Ada Tolla & Giuseppe Lignano | LOT-EK [New York];  Adam Frampton [Hong Kong-New York]; Alex Maymind [Ann Arbor/Los Angeles]; Ania Jaworska [Chicago];  Arturo Scheidegger & Ignacio García Partarrieu | UMWELT [Santiago];  Bernard Tschumi [New York];  Caroline O’Donnell | CODA [Ithaca];  Eric Owen Moss [Los Angeles];  Filipe Magalhaes & Ana Luisa Soares | Fala Atelier [Oporto];  Form_ula [New York];  Gia Wolff [New York];  Hayley Eber | EFGH [New York];  DUS Architects | [Amsterdam]; James Wines [New York];  Juan Herreros [Madrid];  Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates [New York];  Lola Sheppard | Lateral Office [Toronto];  Luis Callejas & Melissa Naranjo | LCLA Office [Medellin-Cambridge];  Marcelo Spina & Georgina Huljich | P-A-T-T-E-R-N-S- [Los Angeles]; Mark Shepard [Buffalo]; Michele Marchetti | Sanrocco [Milan];  Neil Spiller [London];  Norman Kelley [Chicago-New York];  Odile Decq [Paris]; Rafi Segal [New York];   Rojkind Arquitectos | Michele Rojkind & Gerardo Salinas [Mexico DF];  Ryan Neiheiser, Giancarlo Valle & Isaiah King | another pamphlet [New York];  Stan Allen [New York];  Veronika Valk [Tallinn];  Viviana Peña | Ctrl G [Medellin];  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 was Storefront’s second annual architectural drawing show aiming to contribute and transform our understanding of architectural drawings in the 21st century. The drawings on display were auctioned online during the exhibition. Proceeds directly support Storefront’s exhibitions and programs.

 

The opening reception of POP was sponsored by Grolsch.