Archinect - News

USC Architecture begins search for a new Art Director

2024-10-23T07:36:00-04:00

Following our previous look at an opening for a Capital Projects Manager at the DC Public Library, we are using this week’s edition of our Job Highlights series to explore an open role on Archinect Jobs for an Art Director at the University of Southern California.

The role, based in Los Angeles, calls for an individual to “lead the direction of all materials and visual media produced by the school.” Among the responsibilities for the role will be overseeing the school’s visual brand identity across media and publications, as well as leading creative design projects according to the school’s brand. The school hopes to attract applicants from those with a “thorough understanding of digital media and evolving online platforms” as well as expertise in photography, typography, and printing.

USC studio environment. Image courtesy of USC School of Architecture

Why the role interests us

The open role at USC comes only weeks after Archinect interviewed the new Dean of the institution’s schoo...

Peter Zumthor details LACMA’s design inspiration in new interview

2024-10-08T11:02:00-04:00

This must do something to the city—like the Pan Am Building in New York—but somehow today the courage is lost. It must mean something to the city that there is a shape that is hard to understand crossing the road. The owner’s representative in charge of our project recently said to me, “Peter, I’ve now started to understand what this building is doing on all sides.”

LACMA recently pushed back the opening of Zumthor's David Geffen Galleries to 2026 as Christopher Knight quoted an unnamed museum source in the LA Times as saying the project's budget (which had been an initial hurdle to clear) is now in excess of $835 million.

"In about a year, one end will open," Zumthor said, speaking of a public viewing period that could begin once the temporary certificate of occupancy (TCO) is obtained next May. "Some curators were critical of the spatial concept of the layout of the museum. But now since they can go and see the space for the first time, they start to like it. And they see the beauty of the handmade concrete body of the building—so I am told."

10 architectural installations & pavilions that stood out this week

2024-10-05T08:00:00-04:00

In case you haven't checked out Archinect's Pinterest boards in a while, we have compiled ten recently pinned images from outstanding projects on various Archinect Firm and People profiles.

Today's top images (in no particular order) are from the board Installations.

Tip: use the handy FOLLOW feature to easily keep up-to-date with all your favorite Archinect profiles.

↑ A table elevated in the landscape in Logroño, Spain by Álvaro González Serrano and J-AF Architecture; Photo: Josema Cutillas

↑ Six Sections in Zhangzhou, China by Studio Link-Arc

↑ Colour Palace in London, United Kingdom by Yinka Ilori and Pricegore; Main Contractor/Design Partner: Raskl; Photo: Adam Scott

↑ Qianhai Floating City in Shenzhen, China by People's Architecture Office; Co-Designer: Dongxiying Studio, CCDI; Photo: Zhang Chao, People’s Architecture Office

↑ Blooms in San Jose, CA by Hou de Sousa

↑ RGB by Mike McKay; Photo: Alan Rideout Photography

↑ Gulao Tea Alcove in Heshan, China by Huang Zelin · Aether ...

USC School of Architecture hosts Olafur Eliasson in conversation with Johanna Burton ahead of PST ART on Sept. 9th

2024-09-05T14:03:00-04:00

This post is brought to you by USC School of Architecture

Next Monday, September 9th, the USC School of Architecture, in partnership with USC Visions & Voices and The Museum of Contemporary Art, will host a conversation between Icelandic-Danish artist Olafur Eliasson and MOCA director Johanna Burton to mark the inception of the third Pacific Standard Time Art exhibition in Los Angeles.

Eliasson is the subject of an upcoming MOCA exhibition, Olafur Eliasson: Open, which runs through July 6th, 2025, at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA downtown space.

Olafur Eliasson and Johanna Burton. Image (Olafur Eliasson): Louise Yeowart, 2024, (Johanna Burton): Erin Leland

He and Burton will talk about the process for his work, which he does not view as completed until it engages an audience. Eliasson’s work has been exhibited this year at the Singapore Art Museum (SAM) and Istanbul Modern, displaying the same confluence of science, art, and technology that forms the basis of this year’s PST ART: A...

Completed cultural sector projects valued at more than $8 billion in 2023, study shows

2024-08-05T19:38:00-04:00

The value of completed cultural projects worldwide in 2023 totaled $8.58 billion, and announced projects equaled another $5.62 billion, according to the latest Cultural Infrastructure Index from the industry group AEA Consulting. The accounting includes 192 completed projects that year, in addition to 198 announced projects through the end of December.

The most expensive among the completed projects was the $500 million REX-designed Perelman Performing Arts Center in New York City. The new Tennessee Performing Arts Center in Nashville from BIG equaled that amount in the announced project category.

The majority of cultural projects (52.6% completed and 56.6% announced) were registered in the Museum/Gallery subcategory, followed by Performing Arts Center for completed projects and Multifunction Arts Venue for announced projects.

The $465 million Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education and Innovation at the American Museum of Natural History in New York by Studio Gang. Image: ©...

Iván Argote's viral new High Line plinth commission speaks to our impermanence as a species

2024-08-02T18:34:00-04:00

New York's High Line just debuted what promises to be a viral new public art installation from Iván Argote. From October on, the fourth High Line Plinth commission winner will present Dinosaur, a 16-foot hyperrealist pigeon sculpture made from cast aluminum. Argote says his work is a metacommentary on the impermanence of the human species.

Iván Argote, Dinosaur, Rendering courtesy of the artist

The bird itself was manufactured in Mexico and must make a pit stop in New Jersey on its migration journey before being installed on its five-foot plinth overlooking Tenth Avenue, a perch from which it will peer into the city until September of 2026. Pigeons, of course, are synonymous with New York City. One criticism might be that a dove would be more appropriate for a high-profile commission in the global media capital, given the many current conflicts ongoing across the world.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by The High Line (@highlinenyc)

New Jersey defunds OMA's planned Centre Pompidou x Jersey City project over high costs

2024-07-31T12:18:00-04:00

The unlikely pairing of the Centre Pompidou and the state of New Jersey that would have seen OMA remake the historic Pathside Building in Jersey City into its first American satellite appears to be over after officials determined the project to be "no longer viable" financially.

"Due to the ongoing impact of COVID and multiple global conflicts on the supply chain, rising costs, an irreconcilable operating gap, and the corresponding financial burdens it will create for New Jersey’s taxpayers, the Legislature has rescinded financial support, leaving us to determine that this project is unfortunately no longer feasible," the letter from NJ Economic Development Authority chief Tim Sullivan to Centre Pompidou president Laurent Le Bon reads. Artnet has more on the unfolding funding debacle, which centers around a question about the satellite's operational costs.

The Centre Pompidou in Paris is currently undergoing a $280.5 million overhaul led by Moreau Kusunoki with associate designer F...

Theaster Gates partners with Philadelphia arts initiative on revitalization project

2024-06-04T14:29:00-04:00

Philadelphia’s Forman Arts Initiative (FAI) announced that it has bought and is developing almost a whole block in the city’s West Kensington neighbourhood as a museum and community centre—with help from the artist Theaster Gates and local architects Digsau and Ian Smith Design Group. The campus will open in stages over the next two years, starting later this summer with a public outdoor space.

Gates is also currently, among many other things, involved in a community revitalization effort for the new St. Laurence Arts Incubator in Chicago and National Museums Liverpool's waterfront development in partnership with Asif Khan.

Listen back to our Archinect Sessions podcast conversation with him here.

Jenny Holzer restages 1989 projection piece at the Guggenheim in New York City

2024-05-21T12:42:00-04:00

This month at New York's Guggenheim Museum, artist Jenny Holzer is having her landmark 1989 light projection restaged in the iconic Frank Lloyd Wright-designed building’s rotunda. The installation celebrates her innovative text-based art alongside pieces from the early 70s to today that were included in the museum's new Light Line exhibition.

Installation view, Jenny Holzer: Light Line, May 17 – September 29, 2024, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. © 2024 Jenny Holzer, Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Ariel Ione Williams © Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York

"Developed in close collaboration with the artist and her studio, the new sign was the subject of an ambitious research project. Guggenheim conservators reverse-engineered the 1989 LED hardware and computer program, which helped inform the new manifestation. This investigation documents future variability and technology upgrades, and contributes to scholarship and methodologies for the preservation of ...

Artist Mary Miss gains injunction against Des Moines Art Center's planned land art removal

2024-05-06T11:41:00-04:00

The lawsuit filed by artist Mary Miss in federal court in Iowa last month has gained a preliminary injunction over the alleged breach of contract stemming from the Des Moines Art Center’s planned removal of her outdoor sculpture piece Greenwood Pond: Double Site (1996). The news was shared by The Cultural Landscape Foundation last week following the announcement of her legal challenge in April. Miss had been attempting to stop museum officials from removing the piece from its grounds over maintenance concerns and said she was thankful to the court for issuing a temporary restraining order, which, she added, “opens the door to the consultations about the future of the site that were denied me.”

The 19-page ruling from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa says the piece is, in fact, a “work of recognized stature” pursuant to the 1990 Visual Artists Rights Act (VARA). Miss and her team now plan on defending its status further in order to establish a definition for ...

Coachella debuts 2024 art installations, its ‘largest immersive and architectural works yet’

2024-04-16T11:43:00-04:00

The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival has completed work on the 2024 edition of its on-site art program. The acclaimed event is taking place across two weekends: April 12–14 and 19–21.

The three artistic works are described by the festival as "redefining the boundaries of large-scale art, inviting festival-goers to engage with visionary works that ask viewers to question their definition of self, explore the boundaries between reality and imagination & take part in creating a new future together."

"Monarchs: A House in Six Parts" by HANNAH. Image credit: Lance Gerber

"Monarchs: A House in Six Parts" by HANNAH explores the fusion of 3D printing with traditional craftsmanship, comprising a series of pavilions that “invite interaction and contemplation.” A collaboration between Cornell University professors Leslie Lok and Sasa Zivkovic, the piece reimagines architectural design through the lens of digital fabri...

Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama debuts 'Purple Hibiscus' at the Barbican, a reference to the site's material history

2024-04-12T16:33:00-04:00

The Barbican has debuted a new large-scale public art installation from Ghanaian-born artist Ibrahim Mahama.

His site-specific piece Purple Hibiscus, named in reference to the 2003 novel by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, is installed on the facade of the Barbican’s central Lakeside Terrace. It uses approximately 21,500 square feet of fuschia-hued cloth that contrasts dramatically with the rough concrete exterior and overcast London sky.

Installation view, 'Ibrahim Mahama: Purple Hibiscus.' Image: © Dion Barrett / Barbican Centre

Mahama created the piece in collaboration with artisans from his Red Clay Studio and Savannah Centre for Contemporary Art in the city of Tamale, Ghana. It references the site's past history as the epicenter of the "rag trade" in Central London before World War II. Together, both the piece and architecture serve as a metaphor for the "power of labor."

Installation view, 'Ibrahim Mahama: Purple Hibiscus.' Image: © Dion Barrett / Barbican Centre

The artist describes...

JR debuts latest Italian commission 'La Nascita' for Milan Design Week

2024-04-11T13:03:00-04:00

French street art pioneer JR has debuted his latest piece, a massive illusory trompe l’oeil piece animating the facade of Milan’s Stazione Centrale railway station, in advance of the start of Milan Design Week in the Italian cultural nexus.

His latest commission is titled La Nascita (Italian for “the birth”) and will run until May 1st, following two previous Italian projects at the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence and Palazzo Farnese in Rome that were completed in 2021.

“In spaces that have social issues, my work is about bringing people together. In a place like this, a huge range of people come to catch the train. When they find themselves in front of an exhibition, they will suddenly have a different kind of interaction,” he told The Art Newspaper at its unveiling.

More of our coverage of Milan Design Week can be found here.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by JR (@jr)

Artist Mary Miss files suit to stop demolition of outdoor installation at Des Moines Art Center

2024-04-09T17:42:00-04:00

Artist Mary Miss has filed a lawsuit in an ongoing dispute over the planned demolition of her outdoor installation Greenwood Pond: Double Site (1996) at the Des Moines Art Center in Iowa.

A district court subsequently decided to issue a temporary restraining order against the institution’s plans, which were to be enacted on April 8th of this year.

Greenwood Pond-Double Site, Des Moines, IA, 1996. Photo © Mary Miss courtesy The Cultural Landscape Foundation

Miss, who is considered a leading figure of the Land Art movement, filed the legal challenge after The Cultural Landscape Foundation divulged the Art Center’s “secret plans” to deconstruct and remove the installation from its grounds over the deterioration of its materials and presumed adversity of potential repairs.

Greenwood Pond-Double Site, Des Moines, IA, Dec. 2023. Courtesy The Cultural Landscape Foundation

Miss is alleging a breach of contract as part of the suit, citing a 1994 agreement and seeking damages through a readi...

Richard Serra, monumental steel sculptor and inspiration to many architects, has died at 85

2024-03-27T11:20:00-04:00

Richard Serra has died. The 85-year-old sculptor who made architecture more or less a permanent condition of his art was known for inventing a process for bending corten steel to create works he explained were about eliciting sensation and intended to display the unseen physical forces of nature.

More than any other contemporary artist (Sarah Sze, Robert Irwin, Richard Estes, etc.) whose work is informed by or makes as its subject architecture, Serra’s use of steel as a means of organizing space and sequencing experience within it is, arguably, the greatest primer for any learner embarking on academic studies in the field.

He began his experimentations first with rubber before advancing to cast lead and then finally steel, a material whose properties and building potential he understood innately thanks to time spent working in steel mills during his early years in California. The opportunity to study art at Yale University changed his life thereafter.

Serra's 'Bend' sculpture at the...

In an Ontario plaza, interactive pavements play music ‘as if by magic’

2024-02-28T13:28:00-05:00

Montreal-based studio Daily tous les jours has completed a public space design in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada. Titled 'River Lines,' the project saw the creation of an interactive stage in an urban plaza for big impromptu musical ensembles.

Video credit: doublespace photography

Part of the studio’s wider Musical Pavement series, the interactive wave-patterned pavement is embedded with 62 sensing light rings that “get people moving through musical collaboration exercises.” The infrastructure is formed of twelve in-house tailored audio tiles that have no visible hardware and blend with the wider pavement pattern, meaning “music emanates from the ground as if by magic.”

Image credit: doublespace photography

Located on the site of a 19th-century foundry, the artwork is “a response to the historical nature of the site” and “an exemplar of how investment in the public realm is essential to reimagine and activate places and encourage collective interacti...

The Motorist Won: Envisioning a vehicle-centric UK with Archinect Generative Futures finalist Kyle Branchesi

2024-02-13T19:32:00-05:00

Designer Kyle Branchesi has shared images from his latest creative experimentation with generative AI tools, a visual commentary touching on the debate over pedestrianism and motor vehicles happening currently within the UK.

For 'The Motorist Won,' Branchesi imagined a far-off dystopia plagued by vehicle traffic where historic streets and all visible landmarks are besieged by the hum of engines and blur of lights, making cities like London or Edinburgh the all-too-unfortunate casualties of what PM Rishi Sunak says is a "war" against cars.

The Motorist Won by Kyle Branchesi

Branchesi describes: "Amidst a political landscape where the 'war on motorists' is wielded as a populist tool, this series captures a future where this rhetoric has prevailed. The transformation of UK landmarks like Stonehenge into vast vehicular realms underscores the absurdity and danger of prioritizing short-term political gains over sustainable urban planning. These images mirror the contentious debates in the ...

Banksy murals to be digitally preserved as part of new UK art database

2024-02-09T14:28:00-05:00

Art by the famous artist Banksy is to be included in a new initiative to document the UK’s murals. As reported by The Art Newspaper, the project will see more than 5,000 murals from across the UK digitally recorded for access in a free public database.

The project is being overseen by the educational charity Art UK with support from the National Lottery Heritage Fund. The three-year initiative will see public works recorded by a network of volunteer researchers and photographers, alongside documenting the stories behind the pieces.

“The location of murals, the circumstances behind their creation, and the materials used to create them can result in this type of artwork being ephemeral in nature,” Art UK says about the project. “Buildings and housing estates are demolished to make way for new developments meaning that many murals have been lost. We will record the murals as they look now, to provide a record if they are removed, defaced, or suffer environmental damage.”

Related on Arc...

Antoni Gaudí’s Casa Batlló overlaid with AI-informed artwork by Sofia Crespo

2024-01-30T11:46:00-05:00

Antoni Gaudí’s Casa Batlló in Barcelona has served as the host for a major projection mapping artwork by Sofia Crespo over the weekend. Titled Structures of Being, the event drew 95,000 visitors across its showing on January 27th and 28th.

Image credit: Claudia Maurino

Created by Crespo with music by Robert M. Thomas, the project is described by organizers as “a spectacular setting that immersed the public in the nature contained inside Casa Batlló as well as in Gaudí's creative universe.” Created with the aid of artificial intelligence and the Barcelona Supercomputer Center, the project used data on the behavior of marine currents.

Image credit: Claudia Maurino

The artwork draws on Crespo’s interest in the boundaries of human perception in addition to her research into Gaudí’s own sources of inspiration. The resulting methodology saw Crespo use artificial neural networks to extract visual patterns from data inspired by the bra...

Art performance at Tadao Ando's concrete MPavilion features grayscale gelato

2024-01-26T17:26:00-05:00

An exciting and tasty art performance has taken shape at the Tadao Ando-designed MPavilion in Melbourne, Australia.

It comes in the form of grayscale gelato, created by Brazilian artist João Loureiro in collaboration with local creamery Piccolina Gelateria. The treat is available in six different flavors, each a different shade of gray ranging from light gray to nearly black. No flavors are labeled, stimulating a unique and surprising sensory experience with pavilion visitors during the Australian summer months.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Piccolina Gelateria (@piccolinagelateria)

The gelato colors mirror the pavilion’s aesthetic, which comprises enclosed concrete perimeter walls and an aluminum-clad, single-column main structure and roof.

Related: Tadao Ando's MPavilion opens in Melbourne. Image: Beatrice Eckermann

As stated by MPavilion, "...this work questions our sense of comfort and forces us to rethink associations that have been rooted in u...

Refik Anadol creates ‘world first’ AI model trained on data from nature instead of humans

2024-01-15T11:35:00-05:00

Refik Anadol Studio has announced the creation of the “world’s first open-source generative AI model dedicated to nature.” Titled 'Large Nature Model,' the model is trained “solely on nature’s inherent intelligence” as opposed to the conventional approach to AI large language model training, which consists of human-generated data such as art and text.

To train the model, Anadol’s studio used open-access information from institutions including the Smithsonian Institution and London’s Natural History Museum alongside various other universities, museums, foundations, government entities, and libraries. The studio is also visiting 16 rainforest locations around the world, deploying data collection technologies such as LiDAR, photogrammetry, and the capturing of ambisonic audio and high-resolution visuals of diverse ecosystems to further train the model.

“Our vision for the Large Nature Model goes beyond being a repository or a creative research initiative,” said Refik Anadol about the m...

Janet Echelman completes rippling sculpture in Riyadh informed by earthquake and tsunami data

2024-01-12T13:52:00-05:00

Janet Echelman has completed a sculpture in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, as part of the artist’s Earthtime series.

Named Earthtime 1.26 Riyadh, and installed in the city’s Wadi Namar in December 2023 for the Noor Riyadh light art festival, the sculpture “celebrates the interconnection of sky and earth, flexibility and strength, humans and our physical world, bridging opposites with bold colors and soft curves,” according to the artist.

Image credit: Janet Echelman

Image credit: Ahmed Hasan

The sculpture is composed of knotted fibers, and designed so that as a single knot moves in the wind, the location of every other knot in the sculpture’s surface is changed in what the artist describes as “an ever-unfolding dance of human-made creation with the forces of nature beyond our control.” The custom-engineered fibers are fifteen times stronger than steel by weight and were knotted and spliced with the help of centuries-old craft techniques.

Image credit: Janet Echelman

Image credit: Janet Echelma...

Plans for new LACMA-backed Las Vegas art museum emerge

2023-12-27T08:00:00-05:00

Around three years after the Nevada Museum of Art (NMA) in Reno suspended its plans to move forward with a Las Vegas branch of the museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and the foundation of the philanthropist Elaine P. Wynn have announced an unprecedented partnership to launch a new museum in the city called the Las Vegas Museum of Art (LVMA).

As The Art Newspaper reported, plans for a new Las Vegas Museum of Art have the approximately 60,000-90,000-square-foot cultural facility commence in 2028 and cost around $150 million to construct in five-acre Symphony Park. LACMA is supporting the effort, which will (hopefully) fill the void left after the first Las Vegas Museum of Art closed its doors in 2009 over a lack of funding. Backers now have until 2025 to submit a design proposal and project timeline to the city.

“Our efforts to work with local and regional museums to share our collections and programs to larger and more diverse audiences are a priority in this joint effort,” a spokesperson for LACMA told TAN. “Las Vegas is currently the only city among the 30 largest in the U.S. to lack a standalone art museum [that is not a member of American Alliance of Museums]. It promises to be a valuable addition to the city and the cultural landscape of the region.”

No architects have been named to the project at this time.

...

London’s Battersea Power Station hosts giant Christmas tree animation by artist David Hockney

2023-12-06T13:10:00-05:00

The world-renowned artist David Hockney has lit up London’s iconic Battersea Power Station with a giant installation resembling two Christmas trees. Titled ‘Bigger Christmas Trees’ and set on the station’s two north-facing 328-foot-tall chimneys, the animation will be on display from December 1st until Christmas Day, December 25th.

“Battersea Power Station is such a beautiful building, I wanted to decorate it in a way that I hoped would bring joy and hope to Londoners,” said Hockney about the scheme.

Image credit: Apple

The 10-minute animation was designed by Hockney on an iPad using a digital pencil; an appropriate method given that Battersea Power Station currently houses Apple’s UK headquarters.

In June, we reported on the opening of Foster + Partners’ Apple Store within the station, marking the company’s 40th store in the United Kingdom. Late last year, meanwhile, we covered a review of the newly completed WilkinsonEyre interior spaces in the station alongside a Frank Gehry-desig...

Johnston Marklee completes renovation of Roy Lichtenstein's studio into a new home for the Whitney Independent Study Program

2023-10-27T17:37:00-04:00

The Whitney Museum of American Art has shared news of a recently completed conversion project from Johnston Marklee in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan.

The former studio and home of famed New York School painter Roy Lichtenstein at 741/745 Washington Street is now the new permanent home for the Whitney’s 55-year-old Independent Study Program (ISP), which counts Donald Judd and Jenny Holzer among its many alumni.

Image courtesy Max Touhey

A new third level was added to the existing structure to accommodate the year-round slate of activities, creating an 11,000-square-foot space. The building also doubles as a host for the museum’s Education department in the summer when the ISP is out of session.

Image courtesy Filip Wolak

“Thanks to Roy, this building has been the site for artistic and intellectual endeavors, both for himself and for the people who have long gathered here. I can’t think of a more meaningful use for the studio than for the Whitney to carry his legacy f...

Groundbreaking conceptual artist Robert Irwin dies at 95

2023-10-26T15:35:00-04:00

Robert Irwin, a pioneering conceptual artist and leading figure of the Light and Space movement whose work had significant influences in architecture, passed away last night in San Diego. He was 95.

Irwin helped push the boundaries of American post-war art with his understanding of the principles of design. Along with a cohort of artists like James Turrell, Richard Serra, Larry Bell, and Donald Judd, Irwin worked to constantly challenge the perception of his viewers. He left behind painting to pursue a “conditional art” that espoused a further shift away from pictorial composition and towards the responsiveness of art objects to the context of a site.

Irwin’s collaborative site-conditioned work with institutions such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, Dia Art Foundation, and LACMA set new precedents for the inclusion of living artists in a museum’s program, the influence of which today can be seen in the careers of Marina Abramović and Isaac Julien, among others. Irwin was also ...

Iconic Parisian cathedral transformed into ‘sensory nighttime exploration’ by multimedia company Moment Factory

2023-10-26T12:53:00-04:00

Montreal-based Moment Factory has completed an immersive multimedia experience inside the iconic Dôme des Invalides in Paris. The project, titled 'AURA Invalides,' consists of a 50-minute experience combining video mapping, lighting, special effects, orchestral music, and sound design to celebrate the building’s architectural and historical heritage.

Image credit: Moment Factory

Conceived in 2019 by cultural operator Cultival in collaboration with Musée de l’Armée, the project seeks to create a “sensory nighttime exploration” in which visitors wander through the Dôme des Invalides and its six chapels guided by light. The experience is divided into three acts, each portraying a distinct facet of the site: “its construction, the memories it harbors, and its power to inspire one and all.”

Image credit: Moment Factory

To project an experience onto the main dome, which measures 295 feet high and 98 feet at its smallest diameter, the t...

Refik Anadol's Machine Hallucinations generative AI piece acquired by MoMA

2023-10-11T15:59:00-04:00

Refik Anadol has made history as one of two prominent digital artists to have their works acquired into the permanent collection of the 94-year-old Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City.

The museum announced its acquisition of Anadol’s 2022 Generative AI piece Unsupervised – Machine Hallucinations, along with the blockchain-based piece 3FACE. 2022 from artist Ian Cheng, this week. Anadol's work was a gift to the museum by the 1OF1 Collection (which is led by Ryan Zurrer) and the RFC Collection, which is led by Pablo Rodriguez-Fraile and Desiree Casoni.

Writing on Instagram, Anadol commended the museum’s curatorial decision, saying it “inscribes a historic chapter as MoMA welcomes the first Generative AI and tokenized artwork into its esteemed permanent collection.” The work was one of three made for last year’s special solo exhibition using a machine learning algorithm to interpret publicly available data taken from the museum’s collection to produce reinterpreted images that...

Take a look inside Magazzino Italian Art's new minimalist Robert Olnick Pavilion

2023-10-05T12:26:00-04:00

Alberto Campo Baeza and Miguel Quismondo of MQ Architecture have delivered a new 13,000-square-foot expansion to the ten-acre campus of Magazzino Italian Art in Cold Spring, New York.

Sited on the grounds perpendicular to Quismondo’s existing L-shaped main museum building from 2017, the Robert Olnick Pavilion repeats the scale, cornice lines, layout, and materiality of the older structure while adding much-needed room for educational and events programming in time for the start of the fall arts season. The pavilion was inaugurated in September, joining OMA and Cooper Roberston’s new AKG Art Museum expansion in Buffalo as one of the most important American cultural and museum sector commissions of the year.

Photo by Javier Callejas. Courtesy Magazzino Italian Art.

The scheme is designed to showcase the museum’s arte provera, Murano glass, and ceramics holdings, with two airy, light-filled galleries complemented by another cube-like “isotropic room” from Baeza elevated above the main v...

LACMA and Snapchat unveil third Monumental Perspectives AR collection across Los Angeles

2023-09-09T08:00:00-04:00

The third collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)’s ongoing Augmented Reality Monumental Perspectives series has been unveiled to the public, featuring works of five artists that offer insights into the histories of their own unique pockets of LA’s patchwork mosaic of communities.

The series’ final trove includes Victoria Fu, Yassi Mazandi, Rashaad Newsome, Rubén Ortiz Torres, and Alison Saar. Each is accessible through Snapchat’s Lens Explorer tab. The initiative is being funded as part of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s larger $250 million The Monuments Project project. LACMA President Michael Govan says each work “challenges us to examine the individual and communal legacies we are leaving today and how we are shaping the future of Los Angeles.”

Rubén Ortiz Torres, Dead Heads (2023). Image courtesy Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Yassi Mazandi, The Thirty Birds (2023). Image courtesy Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Fu will offer a virtual take on a subject,...