Title: Architectural Strategies in Contemporary Art

Call for Abstracts: February 1, 2010

Due Date for Completed Papers: December 31, 2010

Visual art has long functioned as a form of architectural history and
criticism and as a site for the interpretation of the built
environment. A critical and highly recorded chapter of this
interchange begins in the 1960s with Gordon Matta-Clark, Michael
Asher, and Mel Bochner, for whom architecture was a site for
institutional and cultural critique. A second, equally well-documented
chapter within this ongoing history comes with the self-conscious
adoption of Postmodern principles by both architects and designers of
the built environment. Indeed, with the advent of postmodern
architectural experiments, ?architecture? ? its history, its function,
its meanings - became the explicit subject of architecture ? a
development that in turn paved the way for a third chapter, in which
art again takes up architecture and space as subject. Indeed,
contemporary art is now a crucial, if under-theorized site for
architectural discourse, developing histories, theories and
interpretations which stand alongside the history and theory imagined
and written by architecture.

If this phenomenon is largely unacknowledged by art and architectural
historians, much contemporary art nevertheless functions in tandem
with art and architectural history as a supplementary form of
discourse in which the meanings of buildings get recorded, mapped out
and articulated, often in conjunction with specific histories and
narratives ? as in, for example, Jane and Louise Wilson?s disorienting
video installation, Stasi City (1997), the action of which unfolds in
the abandoned headquarters of the East German secret police, or Paul
Pfeiffer?s Dutch Interior a complex, multi-media installation of the
staircase featured in Amityville Horror (1979). Likewise, Damian
Ortega?s three hanging sculptures, together entitled Skin (2006-2007),
take as their subject three housing projects in Mexico City, Warsaw
and Berlin, ?skinning? from individual housing units full scale floor
plans and translating them into leather, to be exhibited hung from a
gallery ceiling by meat hooks. More straightforwardly, there are the
photographs of Hiroshi Sugimoto and Andreas Gursky, many of which
imagine architectural monuments anew, purposefully complicating the
normative understanding of modern architecture and its imaging, or,
equally, or the two-dimensional works of James Casebere and Julie
Mehretu in which generalized architectural tropes such as entrances,
tunnels and stadia are subject to intensive analysis and
interpretation. It is our contention that sustained engagement with
these works will inevitably entail careful analyses of the
architecture therein, thus resulting in a mutually beneficial dialogue
between disciplines that were never not entangled at the level of
practice.

At the same time, contemporary art is equally concerned with advancing
potentially a-historical readings ? just as Postmodern architecture
arguably did in several of its key monuments. As such, we are as
concerned with illegitimate appropriations, as we are with those that
seek to dutifully comment upon the historical significance and meaning
of architecture and architectural forms. Consequently, we take
seriously the possibilities implicit in misquoting specific buildings
and typologies, such that established meanings are transformed, put
under pressure, and perhaps lost. Just this phenomenon is evident in
Martin Kippenberger?s Psycho Buildings (1988), which together expose
the contorted forms of Berlin architecture, suggesting a tortured
subconscious within the everyday built environment. Similarly,
Cremaster 3, one in a series of five feature length films by Matthew
Barney, narrates a fictitious account of the construction of the
Chrysler Building, which itself becomes both a location and a main
character within the film, host to the encounters between ?The
Architect? (played by Richard Serra) and the ?Entered
Apprentice? (played by Barney). The cultural meaning and understanding
of such architectures are completely transformed by these artists?
interventions.

With such possibilities in mind, we are soliciting essays for an
anthology on the subject of key intersections between contemporary art
and architecture. As we see it, this collection will establish and
analyze contemporary art?s contribution to architectural history and
theory over the course of the last twenty-five years. We therefore
encourage submissions that concentrate on a single work of art or
series, or on a particular building or building type as it appears in
the work of multiple artists. Essays that address the strategic
deployment of the concept or the medium of ?space? within contemporary
art are also welcome. Essays may focus on traditional as well as new
media, and contributions may adopt strategies not limited to the
approaches outlined above.

Interested parties should send a 500-word abstract together with a
curriculum vitae and brief bio to Nora Wendl and Isabelle Wallace by
February 1, 2010. Completed essays of no more than 5,000 words will be
due December 31, 2010. Initial inquiries are welcome.

Nora Wendl
Assistant Professor, Architecture
School of Architecture
University of North Carolina Charlotte
Email: nwendluncc.edu

Isabelle Loring Wallace
Assistant Professor, Contemporary Art and Theory
Department of Art History
Lamar Dodd School of Art
University of Georgia, Athens
Email: iwallaceuga.edu