Welcome! If someone forwarded you SKYLINE, sign up here to receive it weekly.
Good morning - we almost have a new issue out! That means this week is your last to subscribe and receive our current issue, #21. This morning we are happy to share an interview from that issue, “Exhibition-Making,” about architecture curator Irene Sunwoo’s move to Chicago. - Nicolas Kemper
EXHIBITION-MAKING: AN INTERVIEW WITH IRENE SUNWOO
by Carolyn Bailey & Phillip Denny
NYRA speaks with Irene Sunwoo, the John H. Bryan Chair and Curator, Architecture and Design at the Art Institute of Chicago. Sunwoo was previously the Curator of the Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery at the Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation (GSAPP).
Phillip Denny: You just moved from the Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery at Columbia GSAPP to the Art Institute of Chicago. There are obvious differences between the Art Institute, an encyclopedic museum with many departments and a broad public audience, versus the Arthur Ross Gallery at GSAPP, which hosts exhibitions for a specialist, professional, academic, self-selecting audience. How do institutional contexts inform your curatorial decision-making?
Irene Sunwoo: GSAPP is a school, so from the very beginning I was conscientious about the gallery’s place within that academic environment. In that sense, I never really saw it as an autonomous project space. I always wanted to think about it in terms of that ecosystem: What are the studios working on? What are the major themes that are recurring in the public programs? What is history and theory most engaged with? I always talked to Amale Andraos, the Dean of GSAPP, about what was top of mind for the school. However, we didn’t want the gallery to facilitate this echo chamber where it is just repeating things that are happening in the studios or classes.
PD: What role did you want the exhibitions to play in the school?
IS: I often wanted to find ways to push back on some observable trends, or on conversations that might not be addressing certain topics or certain methodologies. What were ways that we could overall amplify the kind of discourses that were taking place at the school? And then at the same time I also wanted to bring in outside voices, people from abroad, people who might not be operating within academic institutions, or contemporary architects and designers who were working on projects and ideas that would be of interest to students and faculty.
PD: It’s clarifying to think of that gallery as a small part of GSAPP’s larger academic and intellectual ecosystem. What are some exhibitions that you curated where that collaboration was successful, or maybe a moment in which you were able to bring someone into a conversation from the outside?
IS: What comes to mind is Torkwase Dyson’s show, 1919: Black Water. She is an artist who has worked primarily in painting, but more recently has ventured very deeply into sculpture. We did an entirely new project. She used the gallery as her studio for an entire summer, so there were students around who were working at the gallery and also working at the shop, and Torkwase was really excited by the fabrication lab there and all of the equipment we had. There was a small group of students who kind of became her assistants and were helping her develop these different sculptural modules that you see on the paintings and also helping to develop the sculptures that you see in the middle of the gallery. That was amazing. It made me so happy to see all of these students engaged, who wouldn’t normally be doing this type of project at an architecture school.
PD: That was a beautiful show.
IS: I will say, my ethos or ambition with the gallery was for every show to do something completely different. I always say, “I want to try everything.” I don't think paintings had ever been shown there. It was also maybe a first for Torkwase to be this deeply embedded within an architecture school.
Carolyn Bailey: 1919: Black Water generated a unique relationship between its material and conceptual dimensions, and the history it speaks to. It seems like going outside of the direct object of architecture was really useful in this context.
IS: That's all Torkwase’s doing. I give her credit for this project and its ideas. She's very improvisational. There was an historical episode that was inspiring her, but we didn't know what the outcome was going to be by the end of her studio time. In my conversations with her over the summer, and also in an important conversation between Torkwase and Mabel Wilson that was printed in the exhibition booklet, a recurring topic was a real gap, a lack of forms of architectural representation that can accurately express or communicate or delve into the history of Black spatial experience. I felt that Torkwase’s painting practice and her commitment to geometric abstraction was illustrating this gap in our own tools within the discipline. There’s a point in that conversation between Mabel and Torkwase about how the history of plans and sectional drawings have either totally neglected the Black subject, or how we can read into some of those representational tools to understand that they are in their own way oppressive tools.
PD: There’s something quite powerful about the way you’ve described the role of the Ross Gallery generally, but also this show in particular, in which exhibitions add something to the school that wasn’t there before. There’s an attempt to produce a context for a conversation that is necessary and important and significant to you and to your audience. How will that continue at the Art Institute?
IS: The attempt to shift conversations or give some space to conversations that institutionally have not had space will certainly continue. The Art Institute is a completely different context. It’s refreshing. At GSAPP, it’s a school and they’re prioritizing academics whereas at the museum everybody is doing exhibitions and working with collections. I have to say, I love it. I’m still getting used to it. It’s not about spring semester or fall semester. It’s a totally different sense of time and space and resources. The challenges will be different. I had a lot of freedom at Ross Gallery and for that I’m really indebted to Amale. She was very supportive of any and all crazy ideas that I might have had.
CB: It seems like right now, the role of the curator has taken a more pedagogical turn. Ideally, they’re expected to navigate these complex histories involving the institution, the viewer, and the artist or architect in order to re-articulate the relationship between all three. Do you see the role of the curator becoming more pedagogical?
IS: I don't know if I would use the word “pedagogical.” There are different types of curators. I can speak from my own experience and methods and goals. To me curatorial work is so embedded in producing original research, which can take on so many forms and critical lines of questioning. I would maybe give more weight to original research than I would to pedagogy, even though they go hand-in-hand.
CB: How does your critical research practice drive your work as a curator?
IS: For me, I feel like there are so many goals that I want to hit when doing a project. And that has to do with an acknowledgement that the audience is not monolithic. I would be disappointed if I ever did a show that only architects were excited about, that was so insider baseball. The real challenge is trying to do something that can engage any type of person.
PD: In the past, the curator has been thought of as someone who interprets and cares for a collection. In making exhibitions, a curator contextualizes work and builds an audience’s understanding. But as you said, the audience isn’t monolithic, everyone comes to a show with different types of background knowledge, interests, motivations.
IS: I was recently talking about this with someone and I used film as an analogy. We were talking precisely about architectural exhibitions, so I made this analogy to kind of help illustrate my point of view. When you watch a film, say you and Carolyn go to see a film, you walk out of it maybe fixated on one actor’s performance and maybe Carolyn was not interested in that actor, but was really moved by a particular scene. That’s great. You both were engaged with two very different things about that movie and you’re able to talk about it, that’s the kind of effect that I would want to have. It’s not like I would want ten different people to walk out of the exhibition with the same exact opinion or experience. If somebody doesn’t like a show, that’s fine, as long as they have an opinion about it and can talk to someone about it, I think that’s meaningful and productive. That’s why I’m hesitant to latch onto the word pedagogy because that suggests a top-down approach.
PD: Earlier you said you like to try everything. What is the dream project or format that you would like to try, but haven’t had a chance up to this point?
IS: Maybe it’s a question of scale. Ross Gallery is so fresh in my mind. It’s such a nice scale to be working at, to do focused shows with a small, super tight team. But now I have a bit more space and resources. And not just the collection in my department, but also a collection across the whole museum. Something that I would be excited about is really engaging work across departments. I just feel like if I didn’t do that, it would be such a missed opportunity being in an encyclopedic museum.
PD: I can imagine that exhibition-making at the scale of a major museum like the Art Institute will require even more intensive forms of collaboration.
IS: I think it’s interesting that you guys are using this word “exhibition-making,” which I kind of subconsciously lean towards. Exhibitions are a team effort. There’s so much that goes into it and that’s what I like about it. All of these different people make contributions that I wouldn’t be able to make on my own. I’m not a designer. I don’t have the same design sensibility that somebody else might. I really relish other people’s talents.
PD: The curator is a bit of a romanticized idea. But it’s also insufficient to describe all of the things that people do in making exhibitions—social media, promotion, research, writing, installing, design—all of these things and all these people entering into the project of making the exhibition. It feels wrong to say this is the curator, and all credit and all ideas rest with them. Anyone who’s spent time making exhibitions knows that’s simply not the case.
CB: It truly does involve an ecosystem of people, institutions, and money.
IS: It is also about taking risks. That means that sometimes things don’t go exactly as planned, but it always works out in the end.
AN ANNOUNCEMENT
ARCHITECTURAL LEAGUE SEEKS MENTORS
The Architectural League is looking for participants in its mentor program, “An annual program fostering student-mentor connections among architecture students and design professionals in the New York City area.” Having personally participated in it for two years, I would highly recommend. Information here, application here. Deadline September 10.
The Most Clicked Link in Last Week’s Skyline? 450 Warren.
IN THE NEWS…
Oliver Wainwright unearths the urban planning role of pubs: “Trace the lines of London’s historic protected views, and you’ll find that many of them end up outside pubs…”
Mabel O. Wilson wins the National Building Museum’s Vincent Scully Prize, “With her transdisciplinary approach to identifying, understanding, and revealing how racism and architecture have combined to impact generations of Black Americans, Mabel Wilson has long been a crucial voice and a vital force..”
Michael Kimmelman grapples with a calamitous week of weather, and the challenges ahead for our built environment: “New York City is particularly vulnerable to flooding. Three-fourths of the city is covered by impervious surfaces like asphalt, which means runoff is channeled into streets and sewers rather than being absorbed by the ground. And the city’s century-old subway system was not designed for a warming climate. Even on dry days, a network of pumps pours out 14 million gallons of water from its tunnels and stations….”
DATELINE
The week ahead
Tuesday, 9/7
BATTLES IN A FUTURE ESTATE with Ala Younis
12:00 PM | Cooper Union
Wednesday, 9/8
The Story of Modern Design: 1963-2000 (2/5) with Daniella Ohad
10:00 AM | Center For Architecture (CFA)
TRUSTED TRANSLATORS: CO-CREATING THROUGH CULTURE, ARTS AND DESIGN JUSTICE with Fernando Marti, Prescott Reavis
1:00 PM | UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design
Baumer Series with Charles Davis II
5:30 PM | Ohio State University Knowlton School of Architecture
Thursday, 9/9
Opening Reception for OBJECTS FOR LIVING: COLLECTION II with Daniel Arsham
6:00 PM | Friedman Benda
MAKE MAKE with Gary Bates
6:30 PM | Cooper Union
Lecture with Karen Seto
6:30 PM | Yale School of Architecture
ONLINE | The Letter or the Spirit of the Law? Evolving Governance in Space 5.0 with Timiebi Aganaba
7:00 PM | Parsons New School
Friday, 9/10
Healthy Materials Lab's Repair Workshop
5:00 PM | Parsons New School
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Would you like to share your thoughts? Please write to us - link here.
Four desk editors run NYRA: Alex Klimoski, Phillip Denny, Carolyn Bailey & Nicolas Kemper (who also serves as the publisher). They rotate duties each month.
If you want to pitch us an article or ask us a question, write us at: editor@nyra.nyc
For their support we would like to thank the Graham Foundation and our issue sponsors, Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects, and Thomas Phifer.
If you want to support our contributors and receive the Review by post, subscribe here.