The MAK Center for Art and Architecture is pleased to announce Final Projects: Group LI, exhibiting two installations produced by our Artists and Architects-in-Residence, Kamilla Bischof and Robin Durand.
The residents open their respective apartment units to exhibit two unique final project installations, Kamilla Bischof: Princess Bone, and Robin Durand: A Traverse of L.A. Select installation elements stretch out to the Garage Top outdoor courtyard. Final Projects: Group LI marks the culmination of the 51st iteration of the Artists & Architects-in-Residence Program at the Mackey Apartments. Read more about the Artists & Architects-in-Residence Program here.
KAMILLA BISCHOF: PRINCESS BONE
During her stay at the Mackey Apartments, the artist Kamilla Bischof developed an installation titled Princess Bone. The installation entails an immersive environment taking over her ground floor apartment living room and the attached garden area. During the last five months the installation grew constantly, spreading out over the living area. Bischof interprets her apartment space by creating an interior recontextualized under a backdrop of fragmented fictions. She furnishes and accessorizes her living space with painted surfaces and sculptural elements made out of objects found by walking around in the streets of Los Angeles and on trips to the desert. Materials are accumulated from grocery packaging, 99 cent stores, and garage sales, among others. The artist condenses various elements taken out of holiday and vacation entertainment fantasies like the pool area, cocktail bar, casino, shopping, picnic, and sportive activities. Pieces are piled up, glued together and individualized through artistic techniques. Plenty of patterns, colors and materials clash with the functional ideas of the Mackey Apartments’ architecture. Bischof’s installation floats like a miniature world, a self-contained cruise ship. She creates a domestic scenario that fades into an outdoor sculpture garden, as if an exuberant bathtub, pudding, or candy colored stream would leak out, splashing over the fence of the apartment into the city. The apartment unit and garden set became a platform to film in. A video work was created with sound designed by Antonio Beecroft.
Kamilla Bischof (*1986, Graz) lives and works in Berlin. She studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (2009 - 2015). Recent solo exhibitions include Sandy Brown, Berlin; Boltenstern.Raum, Galerie Meyer Kainer, Vienna; Künstlerhaus, Halle für Kunst und Medien, Graz; FIAC with Sandy Brown, Paris; and Halle für Kunst, Lüneburg. Select group exhibitions include Thunder in your throat, n.b.k., Berlin; Non-Player Character, Kunstverein Schwerin, Schwerin; Avantgarde und Gegenwart, Belvedere 21, Vienna; Ora et Lege, Broumov Monastery, Broumov; Ruinous Times, Lenbachhaus, Munich; Paint, also known as blood, Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw; and Der Hausfreund, Österreichisches Kulturforum Berlin and Heiligenkreuzer Hof, Vienna.
ROBIN DURAND: A TRAVERSE OF L.A.
“What you have to do is enter the fiction of America, enter America as fiction. It is, indeed, on this fictive basis that it dominates the world.” — Baudrillard Jean, Amérique, 1986
Architect Robin Durand’s work explores the mythologies he has built around Los Angeles, creating a personal idea of this city, particularly influenced by: media surrounding late-90s early-00s alternative rock and pop-punk music, mid-century modern architecture, and 1960s modern and pop art, seen as variations of the “American” suburban home. Durand’s work consists of an installation in his Mackey Apartment unit and the outdoor courtyard. A set of built devices complement a photographic journal, a series of booklets recording his explorations of L.A., as well as a compilation of documents reflecting on his practice and research undertaken during the residency. Fascinated by the archetype of the Southern-Californian individual house, Durand questions, without judgment, this perceived outdated dominant cultural narrative and archetype in L.A., and the role of this model in the (sustainable) future. Durand approaches L.A.’s built environment with a self-recognized bias and possible naïveté, conducting his project with a joyful curiosity, asking: what can we (still) learn from Los Angeles?
Robin Durand is a French-trained architect. He has worked in various fields and countries, as part of critical and research-based architecture and landscape practices. He currently lives and works in Sweden, teaching studio at UMA, the Umeå School of Architecture, while developing projects in collaboration or on his own. Robin investigates with enthusiasm the qualities of the ordinary, seeking to challenge the perception of banality and exceptionality. He will continue this exploration at the MAK, focusing on appropriation and redefinition of (cultural) situations through modest means.
Related events
Friday, September 01, 2022
6-9 pm
The Artists & Architects-in-Residence Program at the Mackey Apartments is funded by the Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, the Civil Service and Sport, in cooperation with the MAK — Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna.
Image Credit: Betül Seyma Küpeli