“Shameless Copy”
March 19 – May 31
Terra e Tuma, the Brazilian quartet made up of Danilo Terra, Fernanda Sakano, Pedro Tuma, and Juliana Terra, presents a project that defines their architecture of craftsmanship and skill: a discipline of copying and repetition.
In this exhibition, they draw on the thought of Paulo Mendes da Rocha: the idea that architects are condemned to always making the same house, working with the same materials, but in a different way, as happens also in the field of literature. Shameless Copy challenges the current notion that constant innovation, attention-grabbing novelty, and originality at all costs constitute an irrefutable dogma.
The São Paulo-based firm, known for its austere, pragmatic buildings, exhibits eight of its single-family home projects in this labyrinthine space. The models, made of basic neutral grey materials, are presented simply and straightforwardly, like all of Terra e Tuma’s work. It is not the beauty of the individual models that counts, however, but rather the relations established between them. Set up as a series, in a darkened space, with very precise lighting, some of them are placed in front of a mirror in which the following project is reflected. These superimposed silhouettes interconnect the projects in a complex spatial relationship, transforming a series of single works into an overview of the firm’s methods and production as a whole.