MAK Center for Art and Architecture at the Schindler House

Everything Loose Will Land

May 09, 2013 - August 04, 2013

Opening Reception: Wednesday, May 8, 2013, 6-9 PM at the Schindler House, 835 N. Kings Road, West Hollywood, CA 90069

The MAK Center is pleased to present Everything Loose Will Land, an exhibition exploring the cross-pollination that took place between architects and artists in Los Angeles in the 1970s, a time when the autonomy of art forms yielded to convergences, collaborations, borrowings and more. Part of the Getty initiative, Pacific Standard Time Presents: Modern Architecture in L.A, it is the only exhibtion explicitly to connect the series’ current focus on architecture with last year’s emphasis on the other visual arts.

The exhibition is curated by Sylvia Lavin, Director of Critical Studies and MA/PhD Programs, UCLArchitecture, and features projects by Peter Alexander, Carl Andre, Eleanor Antin, Archigram, Billy Al Bengston, Larry Bell, Denise Scott Brown, Judy Chicago, Peter de Bretteville, Sheila de Bretteville, Environmental Communications, Frank Gehry, Groupo 9999, Victor Gruen, Craig Hodgetts, Andrew Holmes, Nancy Holt, Robert Irwin, Ray Kappe, Robert Kennard, Allan Kaprow, Ed Kienholz, Alison Knowles, Leonard Koren, L.A. Fine Arts Squad, Morphosis, Ed Moses, Bruce Nauman, Maria Nordman, Peter Jon Pearce, Cesar Pelli, Jef Raskin, Ed Ruscha, SITE, Robert Smithson, Paolo Soleri, StudioWorks, Bernard Tschumi, Venturi & Rauch, and others.

A wide variety of of both well known and never before seen works of different media, including Untitled (Equilateral Triangle), a large-scale outdoor sculpture by Bruce Nauman from 1980; an interactive installation of Bloxes by Jef Raskin; a portion of Curved Space Playground Structure, an elaborate cellular crawl structure made from polycarbonate plastic with aluminum struts by product designer Peter Jon Pearce from 1980; and a selection of models and drawings from the Gehry Architects archive.

Taking its name from the notorious Frank Lloyd Wright quip, "Tip the world over on its side and everything loose will land in Los Angeles," the exhibition argues that L.A.'s infamous "looseness" provided a medium for exciting developments in art and architecture. Breaking out of the traditional strictures that governed their practices, artists and architects mingled freely and adopted methodologies from one another. Artworks increasingly came to resemble architecture, and architects began to produce objects independent of the building process. Artists and architects alike explored commercial tools, industrial materials and new photographic processes, extending the realm of possibilities for both fields. Audiences became active participants in art and design and the city itself, made increasingly volatile by both social upheavel and environmental crisis, became an essential material in cultural production of all types. The exhibition presents drawings, photographs, media works, sculpture, prototypes, models, and ephemera, seen throughout the Schindler House and its grounds.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a full color 272 page publication, with critical essays by Lavin, Margo Handwerker, Alex Kitnick, Suzy Newbury, Peggy Phelan, and Simon Sadler; and period documents by Archigram; Robert Ballard; Reyner Banham; Billy Al Bengston; Denise Scott Brown; Judy Chicago; Barry Commoner; Peter de Bretteville, Toby Victor, and Jack Reinic; Victor Gruen and Claudia Moholy Nagy; Rem Koolhass; Leonard Koren; Janice M. Lester; Peter Plagens; Bernard Tschumi; and Tom Wolfe.

May 8, 2013, 6-9 PM
Opening events at the Schindler House
6-7 PM: Exhibition walkthrough with curator Sylvia Lavin
7-9 PM: Reception

May 10, 2013, 7:30 PM
Thom Mayne and Bernard Tschumi in conversation
West Hollywood Public Library Council Chambers625 N. San Vicente Blvd, West Hollywood 90069

Major support for Everything Loose Will Land has been provided by the Getty Foundation.