Storefront for Art and Architecture, New York
In collaboration with N&n Architecture Gallery, Budapest.

Project Description

This presentation of archival materials has been selected to demonstrate the ways in which storefront expresses it's very unique mission with its stakes in locating and presenting moments where art and architectural practices intersect. The selection exhibition installation photography in the form of a slide show, and the display of the newsletters, which have become a quintessential feature of storefront exhibitions, is one way of telling this institution's story.

From the over 130 projects that compose storefront's history, we selected slides from 30 projects that at this moment in time most clearly articulate storefront's mission, as it is described below.

A significant number of now celebrated architects, and also artists, launched their careers at storefront. For example, the provocative spatial propositions of Dan Graham: Exhibition of Environmental Aesthetic /1986/, Bodybuildings: Diller + Scofidio /1987/, J Mandle performance: Six Square /1999/, and Wave Garden: Yusuke Obuchi /2002/. Deeply political investments revealed in projects such as Project DMZ /1988/, The New American Ghetto: Camilo José Vergara /1991/, and A Civilian Occupation: The Politics of Israeli Architecture /2003/, highlight storefront's insistence on putting difficult and challenging issues and questions directly on the table for analysis and discussion.

Yves Klein

Public awareness of the built environment has been explored in a variety of exhibitions and media, among others centricity: the unified urban field /1988/ and unprojected habit: Cathcart, Fantauzzi, and Van Elslander /1992/. There is also a commitment to thinking about how history is interpreted, as seen with architecture and revolution in Cuba /2004/, Yves Klein: Air Architecture /2005/, and our current exhibition Clip/Stamp/Fold: The Radical Architecture of Little Magazines 196x-197x /2006-07/.

As storefront approaches its 25th anniversary, we are reflecting on the mission and its cultural outpourings. Alongside archival materials, we decided to install a recent storefront commission by Pia Lindman titled "Fascia." This project is significant to the ongoing conversation about the concept and now landmark quality of storefront's façade, designed in 1993 by artist Vito Acconci and architect Steven Holl. The edited interview between Lindman and Acconci /august 2006/ that we present here on a video monitor, points to some keys issues around the façade, its creation and subsequent reception, which figures so prominently in storefront's current identity.

The organizers: András Böröcz, Theodora Doulamis, Camilla Lancaster, Yasmeen m. Siddiqui

Special thanks to: Galeria N&n

Mission

Storefront for art and architecture, the internationally renowned not-for-profit institution committed to the advancement of innovative positions in architecture, art and design, was founded by kyong park in 1982. Storefront has presented the work of more than a thousand architects and artists who challenge conventional perceptions of space, from aesthetic experiments, to explorations of the conceptual, social, and political forces that shape the built environment.
Storefront creates an open forum to help architects and artists realize work and present it to a diverse audience in a program that includes exhibition, film, publication, and conversation series. Its program is intended to generate dialogue and collaboration across geographic, ideological and disciplinary boundaries. As a public forum for emerging voices, storefront explores vital issues in art and architecture with the intent of increasing awareness of, and interest in, contemporary design. Among others, storefront has featured the work of vito acconci, peter cook, coop himmelb(l)au, diller + scofidio, steven holl, yves klein, kiki smith, lebbeus woods, dan graham, lewis tsuramaki lewis, and petra blaisse.

In 1993 storefront commissioned artist vito acconci and architect Steven Holl to collaborate on a new façade. The ground breaking project, a series of 13 rotating panels, extends the gallery into the street and brings innovative work to new audiences everyday.