2017: YEAR IN REVIEW
Dec 29, 2017
Each year the vision of the Graham Foundation to advance new ideas across the field of architecture is realized through our international grantmaking program and the public programs we produce at the Madlener House in Chicago.
In 2017 the Graham Foundation commissioned two original exhibitions at the Madlener House, produced a wide range of public programs, and the award of over $1M in new grants to individuals and organizations around the world.
Also, this year 96 diverse and boundary pushing projects funded by the Graham Foundation were realized in the form of exhibitions, publications, films, performances, research, and site-specific installations.
We are honored to share the compiled list of grantee work that came to fruition in 2017—please read on for select highlights and links to the full list of grantee projects.
Exhibition highlights include: Gordon Matta-Clark: Anarchitect at the Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York; Pierre Chareau: Modern Architecture and Design at the Jewish Museum, New York; Victoria Square Project by Rick Lowe at documenta 14, Kassel; Incense, Sweaters, and Ice by Martine Syms, curated by Jocelyn Miller at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; and the Serpentine Pavilion 2017 by Francis Kéré at the Serpentine Galleries, London.
See the full list of exhibtions here.
Publication highlights include: FOLIO: Journal of African Architecture, edited by Lesley Lokko (GSA Imprints); Muriel Cooper (MIT Press) by David Reinfurt and Robert Wiesenberger; Cedric Price Works, 1952–2003 (Canadian Centre for Architecture and Architectural Association) by Samantha Hardingham; Architecture is All Over (Columbia Books on Architecture and the City) edited by Esther Choi and Marrikka Trotter; and Frank Lloyd Wright: Unpacking the Archive (The Museum of Modern Art) edited by Barry Bergdoll and Jennifer Gray.
See the full list of publications here.
Performance and event highlights include: Here Hear Chicago by Nick Cave and Jeanne Gang; Modern Living by Gerard & Kelly; and Black in Design 2017: Designing Resistance, Building Coalitions, a conference organized by Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design African American Student Union.
See the full list events and performances here.
Film and new media highlights include: Housing Works History, a website produced by Gavin Browning, Glen Cummings, and Laura Hanna, which surveys twenty-five years of services built by Housing Works for homeless individuals and families living with HIV/AIDS in New York City; and Through the Repellent Fence: A Land Art Film, directed by Samuel Wainwright Douglas, which follows art collective Postcommodity as they construct Repellent Fence, a two-mile long outdoor artwork that straddled the US-Mexico border.
See the full list film and new media projects here.
Many grantees also participated in this year’s exhibitions and events at the Graham Foundation. Installed in its historic Madlener House, the Foundation commissioned Spaces without drama or surface is an illusion, but so is depth, an exhibition that examined the recent proliferation of collage in architectural representation in relationship to scenography and theatrical set design curated by Wonne Ickx and Ruth Estévez: LIGA-Space for Architecture (Feb 16–Jul 1, 2017). In the fall, the Foundation also presented in the forest (September 14, 2017–January 6, 2018), a new commission by artist David Hartt, investigating the relationship between ideology, architecture, and the environment by revisiting architect Moshe Safdie’s unfinished 1968 Habitat Puerto Rico project. We also presented 26 public programs including talks, performances, and other events. Additionally, the Foundation curated a satellite Graham Foundation Bookshop at the second Chicago Architecture Biennial, a project that the Foundation incubated and launched in partnership with Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events in 2015.
Image: Frida Escobedo, installation view of "Tu casa es mi casa," Neutra VDL Studio and Residences, 2017, Los Angeles. Photo: Adam Wiseman. From the 2016 organizational grant to Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design for "Tu casa es mi casa"