Venice and Modern Architecture, or Venice and Modernism altogether make an odd couple. According to Filippo Marinetti, the author of the Futurist Manifesto (1909), gondolas are no more than “rocking chairs for idiots.” One hundred years later, we must acknowledge that rather than being its opposite, the passatismo castigated by Marinetti is a powerful aspect of modernity. In fact, John Ruskin’s incantations of the waves of the laguna dangerously rippling against the “Stones of Venice” have transformed the city into one of the 20th century’s proverbial tourist destinations and resulted in an extravagant race against Las Vegas. The lecture is about the architecture of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown and the way it has turned this race into art.

Stanislaus von Moos, a Swiss Art Historian, has published monographs on Le Corbusier (1968ff.), Italian Renaissance Architecture, the History of Industrial Design in Switzerland (1992) and the Architecture of Venturi, Scott Brown & Associates (1st volume 1987; 2nd volume 1999). More recently he published Le Corbusier Before Le Corbusier (ed., with Arthur Rüegg, 2001) and Ernst Scheidegger. Chandigarh 1956 (ed., 2010). Currently he is interested in the culture of the Cold War era and the cross-pollinations between architecture and the visual arts since 1970. He has been professor of Modern Art at the University of Zurich (1983-2005) and is presently the Vincent Scully Visiting Professor at Yale University.

On January 27, 2011, Bill Mackey will give a graphic presentation that discusses the relationship of shoelaces, NCAA basketball, Paris, Oprah, golf carts, street signs, and sex to American perceptions of land use and transportation. The critical analysis utilizes humor and parody to question our roles as actors in society and asks audiences to dream of other possibilities for our landscape.

In 1995, Mackey created Worker, Inc. with the intention of bridging the social sciences, planning, architecture, and art. In 2007, he created the Neighborhood Residents Resources Ethnography Studies Unit, a division of Worker, Inc., to understand local physical environments with an emphasis on data. He conducts on-the-ground research and displays it in small pamphlet publications that combine language, humor, pen and ink drawing, ethnographic research, and graphic arts into a concise and finely executed document that offers a fresh, and often surprising, perspective on human environments. Mackey received a 2010 grant from the Graham Foundation for his Field Guides and Checklists series.

Since 1969, Mackey has had 19 different addresses, 23 bedrooms, 10 pets, 15 jobs, played 25 different sports, ingested 20 types of drugs, had 9 surgeries, been to 2 counselors, visited 16 countries, enjoyed listening to 7 genres of music, tried to play 4 musical instruments, received 3 college degrees, owned 7 bicycles, 4 automobiles and 3 golf carts.

Mackey is an architect and was lead designer for a variety of public and private projects in the southern Arizona region. His architectural design work is recognized in national publications and earns regional design awards. Mackey is a co-founder of the design co*op and was Architect-in-Residence at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tucson, Arizona in 2009.

Related Links
Worker, Inc.
http://www.workerincorporated.com/

In “Hair, Heir, Heire: Paratextual Modernity and Learning from Las Vegas,” Michael J. Golec will explore how paratextual, or graphic formatting, of Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour’s Learning from Las Vegas (1972) and Learning from Las Vegas (1977) influences the textual meaning of these two books.  By focusing on the photographic images in the 1972 and 1977 books and in Las Vegas Studio exhibition, Golec asks, “What can we learn from paratextual formatting such that we can have two books that can convey such distinct meanings in their material manifestations?”

Michael J. Golec is an Anshutz Distinguished Fellow in American Studies and Visting Associate Professor of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University.  He is an Associate Professor of the History of Design at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.  And, along with Aron Vinegar, Golec is a coeditor of and contributor to Relearning from Las Vegas, published by the University of Minnesota Press. The book is available for purchase at the Graham Foundation.

Toast the holiday season and the kick off of the Graham Foundation's mini book store in the library. Please join us from 5PM to 8PM to enjoy the Graham Foundation's current exhibition, Las Vegas Studio: Images from the Archives of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, and shop its new book store for holiday gifts. All titles will be 20% off including,

...the exhibition catalogue,
Las Vegas Studio
EDITED BY HILAR STADLER AND MARTINO STIERLI

...a new collection of essays by Denise Scott Brown,
AA Words 4: Having Words
DENISE SCOTT BROWN

...classics,
Learning From Las Vegas
ROBERT VENTURI, DENISE SCOTT BROWN & STEVEN IZENOUR

Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture
ROBERT VENTURI

...recent grantee publications,
Log 20: Curating Architecture
ANYONE CORPORATION

Katarina Grosse: Atoms Inside Balloons
ESSAYS BY DAVID HILBERT AND NANA LAST

Architecture's Historical Turn, Phenomenology and the Rise of the Postmodern
JORGE OTERO-PAILOS

& more!

Book sale proceeds benefit the Graham Foundation's public programs.

On Saturday, December 4, Tali Hinkis and Kyle Lapidus of LoVid will perform with their Sync Armonica, a 9 ft. sculptural, analog, handmade A/V synthesizer.

LoVid's performances use realtime audiovisuals that are immersive, visceral and intensely colorful, patterned and rhythmic. Works combine handmade and machine produced craft, DIY electro-engineering, textile, video and noise.

LoVid is the art duo of Tali Hinkis (b. 1974, Jerusalem) and Kyle Lapidus (b. 1975, New York). Working together since 2001, LoVid’s interdisciplinary works explore social, personal and corporal experiences in the networked era. The duo’s events are playful yet aggressive, with realtime audiovisuals that are immersive, visceral and intensely colorful, patterned and rhythmic. LoVid has performed and exhibited internationally in venues such as: Real Art Ways, Urbis (Manchester), MoMA, PS1, The Kitchen, The Jewish Museum, The Neuberger Museum, The New Museum of Contemporary Art and Institute of Contemporary Art (London).  LoVid has been artist in residence at Smack Mellon, Cue Art Foundation, Eyebeam, Harvestworks, free103point9, and has received grants, awards, and fellowships from NYFA, LMCC, Experimental TV Center, NYSCA, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, turbulence.org, Puffin Foundation, and Greenwall Foundation.
http://www.lovid.org/

Presented in partnership with Lampo.

Founded in 1997, Lampo is a non-profit organization for experimental music, sound art and intermedia projects. For information and to add your name to the Lampo list, contact info@lampo.org or visit www.lampo.org.

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