JOSEPH GRIMA
Storefront for Art and Architecture
Date: Friday 9.18
Start Time: 12:00pm
Location: Rm. 6w, Barney building
The surge of public interest in architecture and design witnessed in recent years is not accidental or serendipitous: it corresponds to a precise attempt on the part of these disciplines to rebrand themselves through strategies that unambiguously mimic formulae originating in the field of contemporary art. The phenomenal success and consequent proliferation of the art biennale, the “blockbuster show”, the large-scale, high-budget temporary installations of the art world goes a long way towards explaining why, today, a similar set of typologies exists within the field of architecture: biennales, temporary pavilions, blockbuster exhibitions that tour the world for years.
Yet in at least one way the trajectories of the two disciplines differ: historically, architecture – particularly on the institutional level – has remained spectacularly disengaged when it comes to critical cultural engagement and political activism. This is finally beginning to change, and this shift is placing small, agile, independent institutions – Storefront for Art and Architecture among them – at the forefront of an ongoing redefinition of architecture itself. departments of Architecture and Media Study.
Joseph Grima is a New York-based architect and researcher. After graduating from the Architectural Association in London, he worked as an editor and adviser at Domus magazine, Milan. He is at present Director of the Storefront for Art and Architecture, a nonprofit exhibition and events space in New York City committed to the advancement of innovative positions in architecture, art and design. He is a PhD candidate at the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths College in London, and a regular contributor to a wide range of international publications. Current projects include a collaborative research into outsourcing as a form of spatial practice, and a survey (provisionally entitled Instant Asia) of emergent Asian architects to be published by Skira in Fall 2007.
