BEING
October 12, 2013–January 18, 2014
Storefront for Art and Architecture
97 Kenmare Street
New York, NY 10012
BEING is a curatorial experiment in the construction of critical institutional histories through an exhibition that looks into Storefront’s 30 years of history of amplifying, questioning, unveiling, connecting, disrupting, dreaming, merging, reacting and experimenting in relation to individuals, ideas and spaces from its past, present and future.
BEING is a collection of narratives through a set of actions. BEING is a transversal examination of Storefront’s 30 years of history to better understand the role and transformation of alternative practices in the construction of culture and public life.
While looking into archival material, institutional archaeology, and contemporary events, the exhibition presents, acts and projects forms of “being” Storefront for Art and Architecture by providing a set of historical and experiential acts and curatorial objects around nine action verbs: Question, Dream, Unveil, Connect, Disrupt, Amplify, React, Merge and Experiment.
Each one of these actions and curatorial objects are presented as a series of installations that allow the visitor to understand in greater depth the mechanisms, methodologies and aspirations of an institution dedicated to the production of radical and alternative practices while inviting and enabling the visitor to act.
As if entering into a living organism, each constantly changing environment, constructed as an experiment in and of itself, informs, arms, and provokes the viewer while indirectly revealing the ways in which the organization functions and its social and cultural positions. After engaging each environment, the visitor leaves with a series of real-time experiences that carry simultaneously Storefront’s history of making.
From a waterbed of unfulfilled dreams containing rejected grant applications and unrealized exhibition proposals, to a compilation of instructions for disruption, to a TV Broadcast studio that displays the organization’s relation to pressing challenges—from the Gulf War to the Occupy Movement—the exhibition aims to bring together all the individuals invested in the discussion and production of work able to address the pertinent issues of our time.
The exhibition includes a rotating Artist in Residency program, a series of TV programs in beta stage, and a series of events and conversations on a weekly basis. Please visit the Storefront website for updates.
The exhibition also includes works previously on display at Storefront by a range of artists and architects in specific moments in their trajectory. Artists include Vito Acconci, Daniel Arsham, Raoul Bunschoten, Beatriz Colomina, Peter Cook, Neil Denari, Liz Diller & Ricardo Scofidio, Dan Graham, Steven Holl, Jenny Holzer, Bjarke Ingels, Alfredo Jaar, Camilo José Vergara, Tadashi Kawamata, Laura Kurgan, LTL Architects, Michael Manfredi, Enric Miralles & Carme Pinós, Antoni Muntadas, Shirin Neshat, Kyong Park, Dagmar Richter, Kiki Smith, Michael Sorkin, Charles Waldheim, Michael Webb, Krzysztof Wodiczko, and Lebbeus Woods, among many others.
Curated by Eva Franch i Gilabert and Carlos Mínguez Carrasco
Designed by Bittertang
Graphic design by This is our Work
Curatorial Fellows: Jessica Ngan and Matt Shaw
Curatorial support: Jordan Anderson and Isabelle Claire Kirkham-Lewitt
Storefront TV Co-producer: E.S.P. TV
