Exhibiting matters: ‘The architecture exhibition – an environment for a radical redesign of the discipline?’

The rise and professionalization, around the 1960s, of the figure of the curator marked an important point in the configuration of an exhibition’s authorship and process, restaging or reframing of art and architecture exhibitions, and questioning processes of instruction versus creation. Such broader shifts in architecture exhibition practices coincided with the emergence of exhibitions conceived as, or concerned with, environments. For example, the work of the Belgian architects’ collective Rotor represents a new kind of emerging practice in architecture, in which various disciplines are combined: from research, curating and exhibition making to material studies and re-use strategies. Rotor made its frame with their instal-lati on ‘Usus/Usures’ at the Belgian Pavilion during the Venice Biennale of 2010. ‘Usus/Usures’, was entirely made up from salvaged building components, which are usually overlooked and treated as “waste”, such as carpet, stairs, railings etc. These elements were exhibited in an isolated manner as to draw closer attention to their own intrinsic qualities, despite, or perhaps exactly because of their anonymous and ordinary appearance, and because of the traces of wear and tear caused by everyday use. Through minimal in its appearance, the exhibition resulted from Rotor’s research into and analysis of the use and wear of buildings and building materials.

Volume Editors
Jasmine Benyamin, Kyle Reynolds, Mo Zell, Nikole Bouchard & Whitney Moon

ISBN
978-1-944214-28-9