Artist:
Jorge Pardo (born 1963 Havana, Cuba; lives and works in Mérida, Mexico and New York, USA).

Description:

“With its nose pointed at Lake Michigan–less than two city blocks away–Pardo’s Santa Cruz 27 racing craft at MCA is a proud testament to two revolutionary designers: West Coast boat builder Bill Lee and early 20th-century architect Rudolph Schindler. Purging the vessel’s shell of its superfluous amenities–leaving only the mast and deck railing–Pardo’s brawny, albeit sleek, Fiberglas form gleams with a pure white finish. The effect is that of an enormous plaster cast dotted with subtle rigging. Below deck Pardo constructs a clean minimal interior inspired by the 1922 house that Modernist architect Rudolph Schindler built as his California residence.

In an interview discussing the redesign of the boat with MCA curator Amada Cruz, Pardo responded, “The inspiration of Schindler is not a one-to-one relationship. I like the economy and invention of the Schindler House. I want to invoke Schindler through the changes that I make to the boat. I am interested in how streamlined one can be when referring to a house or an architect or a historical situation. It’s not going to be a Schindler house inside the boat. It’s more like an attitude towards the economy of the materials and spatial relationships” (Jorge Pardo, exhibition catalogue, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 1997).

Pardo’s boat is a hybrid product that weaves together the mass-produced hull of the Santa Cruz 27 with a customized architectural design. He confuses the lesser value of mass taste with the distinctive value of unique taste; the consumer with the patron; the client with the window shopper.”–Michelle Grabner, Sculpture, December 1997 Vol.16 No.10.