LIGA Book vol. 2 “Exposed Architecture”
Presentation and Representation
Florencia Rodriguez
‘Culture’ is as much about inventing as it is about preserving; about discontinuity as much as about continuation; about novelty as much as about tradition; about routine as much as about pattern-breaking; about norm-following as much as about the transcendence of norm; about the unique as much as about regular; about change as much as about monotony of reproduction; about the unexpected as much as about the predictable. The core ambivalence of the concept of ‘culture’ reflects the ambivalence of the idea of order-making, that hub of all modern existence.
Zygmunt Bauman
It has become nearly impossible to count all the architectural biennials and shows which have been put on around the world over the last decade.
The same applies to both printed and digital publications on architecture. and to so many other contemporary means of showcasing ideas and analyzing architectural practice, and to the array of voices and opinions spewed forth by social media.
We are immediately faced with a query over the methods and relevance of contemporary architectural criticism, and its potential meanings.
Within the current range of communication phenomena there has doubtless been a multiplication of spaces or channels for action, but there are few experiences which come to have definitive and far-reaching impacts. which push boundaries or which tend to contribute to the discipline.
To those of us who see ourselves as architects, temporary exhibitions or installations seem to be an ideal means of communication.
They open the possibility of presenting curatorial narratives which challenge points of view, putting thought into action while providing a public experience. There is something about the empathy and immediacy of communication which comes into play here.
If we place this against a wider historical backdrop, we can see that the twentieth century was a time for formalizing an architectural culture, and even for the invention of architectural theory as such. As this situation was being created, exhibitions became devices for proposing ideas, for expounding theoretical dissertations and for drawing together participants who were promoting different practices, or lines of thought.
By displaying diverse cultural topics or subjects, modern universal exhibitions may be understood as paradigmatic precedents for these questions. We might consider that the pavilions which housed the displays frequently sparked debate in the newspapers, which reached a wider public. It suffices to point to the Crystal Palace or Eiffel Tower and the impact they had in their particular contexts, as they became the symbols of change.
The opening of MoMA in New York in 1930 certainly also had a specific importance for the discipline in terms of the historical importance of certain of the exhibitions shown there. International Style, which opened a few years later, curated by Philip Johnson and Henry-Russell Hitchcock, was fundamental for setting the agenda by means of the exhibition experience. Others would follow, such as Brazil Builds (1943) and Latin American Architecture since 1945(1955), which came to guide state policy. Deconstructivism, the final “ism” of the century, had its glory days there, as well as its rise and fall (Deconstructivist Architecture, 1988).
These experiences did not necessarily meet with a general consensus but we may state that they created a talking point by bringing together productions and individuals, putting up banners and presenting exhibitions to the public. And this is no mean feat as it provided a collective opportunity for critical thought.
On the other hand, we understand that postmodernity is characterized by issues such as the de-differentiation of cultural spheres, the death of the subject and the end of modern individualism, the fashion for nostalgia and the logic of the pastiche, and the proliferation of the theoretical discourse of Fredric Jameson, Perry Anderson and others. The departure of art from museums into the cities, the appearance of land art and of the screen, as a potential space for artistic practices, are the cultural symptoms of a much more complex global trend, hard to boil down and whose representation leaves gaps for that which cannot be represented or summarized. The cultural communication and production media which started up with these processes often work by exploring alternatives or otherness, searching for new modes of experience and thought which are usually based on the aforementioned mode of empathy or on provocation.
In recent decades all this favored the appearance of less institutional spaces which met with great acclaim because they appeared to open the possibility of the demise, or at least the fading or breakup of the obsolete old idea of a single great universal story. Some of these achieved such acceptance that today they are benchmarks of the mainstream, such as the Storefront for Art and Architecture of New York.
Initially many of these experiments operated as models for displaying peculiarities, coincidences and differences, representing topics whose purpose was not hierarchical but rather to participate, agitate and provoke.
LIGA is one such ad hoc space which is not concerned with dependence on the physical characteristics of place as the launchpad for its activities. It is an active part of this scene; it defines territory since it generates expansive actions, links and connections.
This type of active, grassroots participation in the discipline, which represents, translates and disseminates via exhibitions, installations, conversations and publications, is vital for fomenting the discrete conceptual revolutions which drive each collective. Thus the methods used in practice, theory and criticism which most accord with our time are those of inventing, shaping, building and establishing concepts.
These practices and discourses do not seek value through unity, they are incomplete, and they are not closed. They are active, organic, refutable, variable and impudent. They can be more or less spontaneous, more or less authentic, if this still matters to us. It is in this unstable landscape that we can find one of the most interesting means of finding sense and meaning for contemporary architecture.
