artist: The Latest Architecture and News

Renowned sculptor Richard Serra, known for his monumental steel structures that reshaped the landscape of contemporary art, passed away at the age of 85 at his residence in Orient, N.Y. His groundbreaking works, characterized by massive tilting corridors and spirals of steel, offered viewers a unique experience, inviting them to navigate through and around the imposing forms to fully comprehend their essence. Because of this invitation to explore space, materiality, and site, the artist has been long-recognized in the architectural community, earning him the Architectural League of New York President’s Medal in 2014, becoming the first artist to receive the honor.

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Recreating the artist studio in an exhibition has always been a challenge for curators and exhibition designers––bringing in the right amount of “mess,” intricately revealing the workings of artistry, and maintaining the visual coherence are all boxes to be checked while letting the audience behind the curtain. Kazuko Miyamoto: To perform a line, Japan Society’s survey of the artist’s five-decade career in sculpture, drawing, and performance solves this challenge in ways that are both practical and poetic.

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NextOffice’s Sadra Artists Forum is a public cultural center to be located in the arid suburban town of Sadra. Consisting entirely of low-lying or subterranean building levels, the project's unique structure contrasts the surrounding urban area and uniquely shapes the relationship between interior and exterior spaces.

Sculptor and jewelry designer, Cydney Ross explores the architectural passage of time through unconventional ceramics and mixed media. By over-firing, freezing, and thawing her materials, she simulates the swaying, slumping, and even collapsing of structure.

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They say one cannot separate art from the artist, or perhaps in this case, the artist from the architect. Arguably one of the most criticized architects, Le Corbusier is often portrayed as cold and controlling. Depicting his more dreamy and humorous nature, the Nasjonalmuseet's exhibition titled, “Le Corbusier by the Sea,” draws upon his memories from his summer travels along the coast of southwest France.

Hosted in Villa Stenersen, one of the National Museum's venues, the exhibition showcases Le Corbusier's work as an artist during the period 1926-36. Not only does the exhibition include fifteen of his reproduced paintings alongside a collection of sketches, but also screens two films from Le Corbusier's own footage of his surrounding views.

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Artist David Louf, aka Mr. June, has earned a reputation for creating striking urban art, most recently using three-dimensional murals that play off architectural elements. As Colossal reports, within the last year Mr. June's geometric abstractions have become increasingly architectural as they aim to challenge viewer’s perceptions. Producing work since 1985, Mr. June recently completed a 130-foot diameter dome in North Carolina and a 3D mural for Urban Nation in Berlin.

Perhaps as a form of "abstract urbanism," artist Benjamin Sack uses pen and paper to build cities and worlds that come to life as he draws. Towers and low-rise buildings merge together to form familiar yet unimaginably intricate cityscapes with complex spatial arrangements, and, in some cases, in human form. This brand of "abstract urbanism" introduces a provocative perspective on urban context and its relation to those who inhabit it.

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Japanese artist Katsumi Hayakawa's "Paperworks" exhibition explores the impression of architectural density through delicate three-dimensional installations. The intricate sculptures were all hand-crafted piece by piece out of paper and glue, creating an awe-inspiring assemblage of multi-layered urban conditions at different scales. For more information and images, keep reading after the break.

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