Endless House considers the single-family home and archetypes of dwelling as a theme for the creative endeavors of architects and artists. Through drawings, photographs, video, installations, and architectural models drawn from MoMA’s collection, the exhibition highlights how artists have used the house as a means to explore universal topics, and how architects have tackled the design of residences to expand their discipline in new ways.
The exhibition also marks the 50th anniversary of the death of Viennese-born artist and architect Frederick Kiesler (1890–1965). Taking its name from an unrealized project by Kiesler, Endless House celebrates his legacy and the cross-pollination of art and architecture that made Kiesler’s 15-year project a reference point for generations to come. Work by architects and artists spanning more than seven decades are exhibited alongside materials from Kiesler’s Endless House design and images of its presentation in MoMA’s 1960 Visionary Architecture exhibition.
The exhibition displays intriguing house designs from relevant architecture figures such as Mies van der Rohe, Frank Gehry, Peter Eisenman and Rem Koolhaas, but also new acquisitions by Smiljan Radic and Asymptote Architecture. These are presented faced with visions from various artists including Louise Bourgeois, Bruce Nauman, Mario Merz and Rachel Whiteread. Together these works and projects clearly show how the house occupies a central place in the cultural exchange across generations and disciplines.
The exhibition is organized by Pedro Gadanho, Curator of the Department of Architecture and Design at The Museum of Modern Art, with the support of Hyundai Card and Hyundai Capital America.
Description of the project by MoMA
Beyond any cultural differences, home is a concept that everyone recognizes and identifies with. Artists have often revisited and represented dwelling as a means to explore universal values or to critique daily life. Since the Renaissance the residence has been a focus for architectural innovation. After World War II, even as mass-housing developments multiplied, the single-family house remained relevant as a laboratory for exploring new spatial concepts suited to changing ways of life.
Endless House takes as its point of departure an unrealized project of the same name by Austrian American architect and artist Frederick Kiesler (1890–1965). Influenced by Surrealism and the scientific theories of his day, Kiesler imagined dwellings “as elastic as the vital functions.” In contrast to the predominant sensibility of the modernist architecture of his time—which he described as “machine-age houses” that are “split-ups of cubicles, one box next to another”—Kiesler proposed an organic environment animated through a synthesis of painting, poetry, dance, theater, and sculpture.
On the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of Kiesler’s death, this exhibition unveils rarely seen materials from his decades-long project and sets them in dialogue with works by architects and artists from the 1940s to the present. In a display drawn entirely from MoMA’s collection, major house designs—ranging from examples from the second half of the twentieth century to recent acquisitions in contemporary architecture—confront visions by modern and contemporary artists. Endless House: Intersections of Art and Architecture reveals how the theme of the house occupies a central role in a cultural exchange that crosses generations and disciplines.
CREDITS. DATA SHEET.-
Exhibition.- Endless House: Intersections of Art and Architecture.
Dates.- from June 27, 2015, to March 6, 2016.
Venue.- The Robert Menschel Architecture and Design Gallery, third floor. MoMA. NYC. US.
