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U.S. Pavilion at 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale will be organized by Cleveland-based nonprofit SPACES around the role of plastic waste in the built environment

2022-11-15T15:17:00-05:00

Influential Cleveland-based nonprofit gallery SPACES has been selected by the State Department to organize the U.S. Pavilion at the 2023 Venice Biennale, The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported recently.

Under the curatorial theme of “Everlasting Plastics,” the group has said they will invite area artists Lauren Yeager, Xavi Aguirre, Simon Anton, Ang Li, and Norman Teague to explore the danger of plastic waste to the ecosystem. All pursue art that entails “thinking very seriously about systems of waste, waste production, and their impact on communities” and will be presented within the Biennale’s broader context of The Laboratory of the Future and led by former Spitzer School of Architecture dean Lesley Lokko.

Li and Yeager are particularly noteworthy for their investigations into the use of recycled plastic as a building material and structural system, while Teague uses it as a source in his furniture-making practice. The exhibition will also focus on “communities most affected by pl...

Architectural historian and curator Irene Sunwoo joins Art Institute of Chicago as new Architecture and Design Chair

2021-02-15T20:19:00-05:00

Art Institute of Chicago names Irene Sunwoo the John H. Bryan Chair and Curator, Architecture and Design. Sunwoo's extensive background in architectural history, exhibition, and curatorial studies create an exciting chapter for the Institute and its leadership.

Sunwoo served as Curator of Columbia GSAPP's Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery and Director of Exhibitions since 2016 and curator of the Ross Gallery. Her writing has been featured in the Avery Review, Getty Research Journal, to name a few. She is in the process of writing two books focusing on Alvin Boyarsky and Arakawa and Madeline Gins' architectural experiments. Well-versed and heavily invested in Chicago's architectural history and curatorial community, Sunwoo served as Associate Curator and a key team member for the inaugural Chicago Architecture Biennial launch in 2015.

Sunwoo completed her undergraduate studies at New York University in Art History. She also holds two MAs from Bard College in History of Decorative Art...

Jia Yi Gu appointed new director of MAK Center for Art and Architecture

2021-01-12T19:09:00-05:00

An active member of LA's architecture and design scene, Jia Yi Gu is appointed as the MAK Center for Art and Architecture director. After a long search by the Center, she will take on directorial and curatorial responsibilities with her wide-ranging expertise in architectural curation, history, research, and design leadership.

Currently a Ph.D. candidate at UCLA for Critical Studies in Architecture, she graduated with honors from the University of California San Diego with a B.A. in Visual Arts and a Master of Architecture degree from UCLA Architecture and Urban Design. She explains that her Ph.D. work focuses on "the instrumentality of models in the postwar architecture office as a site of demonstration for architectural expertise."

Archinect Feature: Spinagu Exemplifies a Contemporary Practice with Academia, Profession & Experimentation all Running at Full Steam. Image Thick, the exhibition. SCI-Arc Gallery, 2017

She brings her vast knowledge in curatorial practice and institution ...

SCI-Arc launches "MEAT," a curatorial summer program

2016-02-05T20:52:00-05:00

In the short time since Hernan Diaz Alonso assumed directorship of SCI-Arc, the prestigious architecture institute has already seen quite a few changes. Adding to the roster of programs at the newly-founded EDGE, a graduate center focusing on something like the "edges" of the rapidly-expanding discipline, SCI-Arc has just announced "MEAT", or "Making Exhibitions in Architecture Today", a graduate-level summer program for aspiring architecture curators.

Helmed by the respected theorist (and UCLA faculty member) Sylvia Lavin, MEAT intends to introduce summer students to the "intellectual and curatorial potentials in architectural exhibition practices".

The program will comprise a three and a half week course following an "intensive schedule of seminars and excursions," notably to local museums, galleries, and studios. Guest lecturers will include Sarah Herda of the Graham Foundation, Paola Antonelli from MoMA, and Giovanna Borasi from the Canadian Centre for Architecture.

“Launching ...