Another Reality. After Lina Bo Bardi

Six artists share their vision on the Brazilian architect and designer Lina Bo Bardi:
Céline Condorelli, Leonor Antunes, Manuel Raeder & Mariana Castillo Deball, Mike Cooter and Wendelien van Oldenborgh.

This spring the program of Stroom Den Haag focuses on the architect Lina Bo Bardi (Rome, 1914–São Paolo, 1992). Stroom invited six artists who are inspired by her ideas and practice, in which people always take center stage. The artists create work “after” Lina Bo Bardi: they quote and use her work, share it in spirit, idea, shape and form and give it a renewed urgency.

Lina Bo Bardi is best known for a number of striking buildings in Brazil, like Museu de Arte de São Paolo (MASP), SESC Fábrica da Pompéia and Casa de Vidro. In her architectural designs she was not primarily interested in form, but more in the way her buildings were used. The here and now were always the starting point of her designs and she saw people as the leading players in a space, bringing it to life. But Bo Bardi designed so much more, from exhibitions, chairs and magazines to stage sets, jewellery and sandwiches. She wrote about architecture, initiated a number of magazines on architecture which she also designed, and she worked as a teacher and museum director in Salvador in the Northeast of Brazil. Here she also worked on a series of renovations and developed a strong belief in the everyday creativity of “ordinary” Brazilians. She was politically and socially engaged, she dedicated herself to making the “poor” culture of the Brazilian Northeast visible, and she actively propagated her belief in the social responsibility of the architect.

The only time a survey of Bo Bardi’s work was on view in The Netherlands was in 1995 at the TU Delft, a presentation initiated by the architect Aldo van Eyck. Van Eyck praised Bo Bardi’s “uncompromising—simultaneous—solidarity with people, art and architecture,” and the manner in which she staged the way people could use and occupy her buildings, creating a different interaction. In honour of her 100th birthday there were a number of international exhibitions in 2014 and 2015, mostly focusing on her architectural practice.

The exhibition at Stroom does not focus on the buildings Bo Bardi made, but rather on the way she achieved these results. We present the ideas behind her buildings, texts, exhibitions and productions. We do this not only by showing her own work, but also by inviting artists who approach her work in an interesting and innovative way. 

Wendelien van Oldenborgh will show Lina Bo Bardi: The Didactic Room, a work commissioned by the Van Abbemuseum Eindhoven in 2010, inspired by Bo Bardi’s crystal easels, a revolutionary exhibition design for the MASP. At Stroom the crystal easels of Van Oldenborgh will be shown with collages made together with Grant Watson, which explore a number of topics relating to the life and work of Lina Bo Bardi; and with artworks on loan from private collectors (mostly from The Hague).

Céline Condorelli presents a new work after an exhibition design by Bo Bardi from 1970: a wooden grid structure carrying plants that are inextricably linked to the colonial, social and economic development of Brazil: sugar, cotton, rubber, coffee, cocoa and tobacco. On this structure (reproductions of) drawings by Bo Bardi will be shown on a weekly basis.

Leonor Antunes shows one of her Lina sculptures, made of brass wire and brass tubes. The piece comprises a 1:1 reproduction of the parquet floor that Bo Bardi used for the back part of her own house; Casa de Vidro. What is two-dimensional in the house, in Antunes’ work get the three-dimensionality of a sculpture.

Mike Cooter contributes a concrete “stage” to the exhibition; a reflection of the cloud-shaped, anthropomorphic window holes Bo Bardi introduced. Cooter sees his “stage” as a monument to her attention for the social and her organic interventions in rigid systems.

Mariana Castillo Deball and Manuel Raeder are inspired by the drawings Bo Bardi made for her buildings. The colourful and playful sketches are in sharp contrast to conventional architectural drawings with their mathematical precision and architectural details. They contain an atmosphere, trees, plants, animals and insects, and instructions for different functions. Deball and Raeder designed a number of animal-shaped seating sculptures, built in paper mache by a local artist. They are also a statement for craftsmanship versus mass production.

Next to these works and the drawings of Bo Bardi we also present photos and films, books and documentation and offer an in-depth Stroom School program of guided tours, lectures and talks. The events include a lecture by Anna van Lingen & Denisa Kollárová about the playgrounds of Aldo van Eyck (Thursday, April 28); lectures by Zeuler Lima about Lina Bo Bardi as an exhibition designer and by Max Risselada about Charles and Ray Eames and Lina Bo Bardi (Wednesday, May 11); and a “Lina Bo Bardi Fan Day” with Wendelien van Oldenborgh, Marcelo Rezende and Finn Beames (Saturday, July 2). During the run of the exhibition there also will be various public seminars. More up-to-date information can be found on our website: www.stroom.nl

The exhibition is part of Attempts to Read the World (Differently). With this program Stroom Den Haag looks in a searching, intuitive way at our present world and the rapid developments therein. Stroom does this together with the artists Fernando Sánchez Castillo, Céline Condorelli, Dunja Herzog and Neïl Beloufa: they take the first steps in a different reading, interpretation and imagining of the world, and look for possible futures.

Another Reality. After Lina Bo Bardi is made possible in part with the financial support of Creative Industries Fund NL, the Mondriaan Fund and The City of The Hague. Special thanks to: Instituto Lina Bo e P.M. Bardi, Museu de Arte São Paolo, Architekturmuseum/Pinakothek der Moderne, München, Air de Paris, Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven and private collectors.