Le Corbusier, Andrei Burov, and Alexander Vesnin in Moscow in 1928, © Le Corbusier Foundation Paris.

The extraordinary explosion that reshaped Russian culture between the October 1917 revolution and the Stalinist freeze of 1930 induced extreme effects on architecture. Rationalist and constructivist designers imagined a new urban environment in which striking monumental structures conveyed the dynamics of the revolution, while several dozen edifices responded to emerging, innovative practices in the realm of housing and leisure.

In permanent contact with Western scenes such as Germany, France, and North America, albeit indirectly, the architects of the competing Avant-Garde groups saw their dreams crushed by the dire reality of rudimentary building technologies and the conservatism of the emerging ruling class. Yet this pattern of explicit, and sometimes veiled, exchange continued to characterize the production of architecture until the final victory of Modernism in the mid-1950s.

Jean-Louis Cohen was born in 1949 in Paris. Trained as an architect, he received a PhD in history. Since 1993, he has held the Sheldon H. Solow Chair for the History of Architecture at New York University's Institute of Fine Arts. His research activity focuses on twentieth-century architecture and urban design. From 1997 to 2003, he imagined and developed the Cité de l'architecture for the French Minister of Culture, a museum, research, and exhibition center that opened in 2007. In 2012, he received a Graham Foundation grant for his upcoming publication Modern Architectures in History: France (Reaktion Books). A curator of numerous exhibitions in Europe and North America, his books include Le Corbusier and the Mystique of the USSR (1992), Scenes of the World to Come (1995), Casablanca, Colonial Myths, and Architectural Ventures (2002, with Monique Eleb), Mies van der Rohe (2007), Architecture in Uniform (2011), and The Future of Architecture. Since 1889. (2012).

Related Links
Modern Architectures in History: France
http://grahamfoundation.org/grantees/4817-modern-architectures-in-history-france
Architecture in Uniform: Designing and Building for the Second World War
http://grahamfoundation.org/grantees/3677-architecture-in-uniform-designing-and-building-for-the-second-world-war

Lampo and the Graham Foundation are pleased to present Spencer Yeh in his third Lampo performance featuring new and recent videos including Baby Birds, Eclipse, Scrub Study, and a single-channel composite of the multi-channel installation, IMVIS. According to Yeh, “What I'm presenting is essentially a live performance with video acting not only as a supplement, but as a rudimentary AI [artificial intelligence]-type presence in live improvisation…In generating both pre-determined, as well as indeterminate gestures, the videos act as a ‘score’ as well as a sparring partner. The audio feed is placed on level aural ground with the musician's signal.”

Spencer Yeh (B. 1975, Taipei, Taiwan), studied film at Northwestern University, lived in Cincinnati for many years, and is now based in Brooklyn. He is recognized for the musical project Burning Star Core, as well as many other individual and collaborative activities. Current projects include The New Monuments (with Ben Hall and Don Dietrich), a yet-to-be-named quartet with Nate Wooley, Ryan Sawyer, and Colin Stetson, and ongoing collaborations with Okkyung Lee, Graham Lambkin, John Wiese, Chris Corsano, Paul Flaherty, Lasse Marhaug, Eli Keszler, and many others.

This performance is presented in partnership with Lampo. Founded in 1997, Lampo is a non-profit organization for experimental music, sound art and intermedia projects.

Lampo and the Graham Foundation are pleased to present David Behrman and Okkyung Lee in this performance of solo work and collaborations. Okkyung performs an extended cello improvisation, and David offers his View Finder (guitar and electronics) and Freeze Dip (violin and electronics). Together they present, Open Space with Cello / Open Space with Guitar, pieces related to Behrman’s Open Space with Brass, which was commissioned for the final performances of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company at the Armory in New York in December 2011. Their performance mixes and alternates one or several acoustic instruments with computer-enhanced and computer-generated sounds in an unfolding sequence of situations—some very free, some lightly-notated.

David Behrman (b. 1937, Salzburg, Austria) has been active as a composer and artist since the 1960s and has created performance works as well as sound installations. In 1966 he founded the Sonic Arts Union with Robert Ashley, Alvin Lucier and Gordon Mumma. Working at Columbia Records in the late 1960s, he produced the Music of Our Time series of new music recordings, which presented works by Cage, Oliveros, Lucier, Reich, Riley, Pousseur and other influential composers. He has had a long association with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company as composer and performer and has created music for several of the Company's repertory pieces. He received a D.A.A.D. fellowship in 1988-89 and an Individuals Grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts in 1994. Behrman currently lives in New York.

Okkyung Lee (b. 1975, Daejeon,, South Korea) is a composer and cellist whose music fuses her classical training with improvisation, jazz, traditional Korean music, and noise. Lee was born and raised in Daejeon, South Korea, and attended arts schools in Seoul. In 1993 she moved to Boston, where she studied at Berklee College of Music and the New England Conservatory of Music. Since relocating to New York City in 2000, Lee has been very active in the downtown music scene, performing and recording with artists such as Laurie Anderson, Derek Bailey, Nels Cline, Shelley Hirsch, Eyvind Kang, Christian Marclay, Thurston Moore, Ikue Mori, Jim O'Rourke, Zeena Parkins, Marc Ribot, Elliott Sharp, C. Spencer Yeh, and John Zorn.

This performance is presented in partnership with Lampo. Founded in 1997, Lampo is a non-profit organization for experimental music, sound art and intermedia projects.

Please Note: Lee and Behrman will offer a free public workshop on October 26, and lead a discussion following the October 27 performance. The public is invited to bring acoustic instruments to the workshop. Funded in part through New Music USA's MetLife Creative Connections program.

Related Links
Okkyung Lee and David Behrman Workshop
http://grahamfoundation.org/public_events/4943-okkyung-lee-and-david-behrman-workshop

Okkyung Lee and David Behrman will offer a free 1-hour open workshop in conjunction with their LAMPO performance on Saturday, October 27.

During the workshop, Okkyung will discuss how to develop extended instrumental techniques and Behrman will lead discussion around the idea of flexible “scores” or “deceptively simple scores,” taking a look at ways to specify conditions for a music performance, as well as the use of sensing technology and “interaction” in music. The public is invited to bring their acoustic instruments to experiment with his gear. Lampo would like to acknowledge support from New Music USA's MetLife Creative Connections program.

This workshop is presented in partnership with Lampo. Founded in 1997, Lampo is a non-profit organization for experimental music, sound art and intermedia projects.

Related Links
Okkyung Lee and David Behrman LAMPO PERFORMANCE SERIES
http://grahamfoundation.org/public_events/4940-okkyung-lee-and-david-behrman

Richard Pare, Interior Narcomfin Communal House, Moisei Ginzburg and Ignati Milinis, 1930. Photograph Copyright Richard Pare 2007.

The Lost Vanguard: Soviet Modernist Architecture, 1922–32 will open with a public reception on Thursday, October 11, 2012. Please join us for a talk by British photographer Richard Pare at 5:30PM, followed by an opening reception from 6-8PM.

Richard Pare was born in England in 1948 and studied photography and graphic design in Winchester and at Ravensbourne College of Art before moving to the United States in 1971. Pare graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1973. He was curator of the Seagram photography collection from 1974 until 1985 and was the founding curator for the photography collection of the Canadian Centre for Architecture from its inception in 1974 until he became a consultant to the collection in 1989—a role he continues to fulfill. His works have been exhibited widely and he is represented in many of the major public collections of photography. His numerous seminal exhibitions and publications include Court House: A Photographic Document (1978), Photography and Architecture: 1839-1939 (1982), and Tadao Ando: The Colors of Light (1996), which received the AIA monograph award. Recent books include The Lost Vanguard: Architecture of the Russian Avant-garde, 1922-1932, published in 2007, and Building the Revolution, published in 2011. Pare is presently completing a new series of images on the works of Le Corbusier for the Pushkin Museum, Moscow, the first exhibition on the architect in Russia.

For more information on the exhibition, The Lost Vanguard: Soviet Modernist Architecture, 1922–32, click here.

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