Curators:
Jessica Hough (born in Pittsburgh, USA; lives and works in Los Angeles, USA) and Mónica Ramírez-Montagut (lives and works in New Orleans, USA).

Description:
Exhibition around modern architecture organized at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut. Artists included Alexander Apóstol, Daniel Arsham, Gordon Cheung, David Claerbout, Angela Dufresne, Mark Dziewulski, Christine Erhard, Cyprien Gaillard, Terence Gower, Angelina Gualdoni, Natasha Kissell, Luisa Lambri, Dorit Margreiter, Russell Nachman, Enoc Perez, and Lucy Williams.” Catalogue later published as Revisiting the Glass House: Contemporary Art and Modern Architecture.

“Modern architecture is generally identified with buildings by Le Corbusier, Philip Johnson, Mies van der Rohe, and Frank Lloyd Wright, which represent a period driven by developments in technology, engineering, and the introduction of industrial materials such as iron, steel, concrete, and glass. Architects at this time engaged in a practice that not only incorporated structural innovations, but also encouraged social change.

“The artists featured in the exhibition are interested not only in the potential of utopian ideas, but also the sense of a passing idealism that modern architecture now embodies. [Jessica] Hough comments, ‘The artists are less interested in the built structures themselves and what it might feel like to be inside one, and more interested in the philosophy and idealism they represent. The way in which the buildings signal a possibility of utopia is essential—a future that could have been. Sentimentality runs through much of the work.’

“[Mónica] Ramírez-Montagut adds, ‘This melancholic remembrance comes at a time when great works of modern architecture are at risk due to neglect, deterioration, and demolition. Underlying all the artworks is a feeling of deep admiration for the architects who sought to elevate culture and bring it to the broad masses, yet their sense of failure is also prevalent; the artists’ knowledge of modern architecture’s crisis and demise tints their works with some kind of nostalgia’.”
—Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, “Opening at the Aldrich,” press release, February 28, 2008.