This exhibition is a concise yet rich examination of Frederick John Kiesler’s (1890-1965) experimental design practice through the activities of his Laboratory for Design Correlation at Columbia University from the late 1930s to the early 1940s.

Two of Kiesler’s most essential and ambitious projects developed at the Laboratory are explored in this exhibition: the Mobile Home Library, a device proposed to radically alter domestic space, and the Vision Machine, an ambitious apparatus intended to visualize human sight—from optics and nerve stimuli to dream content and dream images. A selection of approximately 100 drawings, photographs, and research studies of these projects, as well as the never before realized construction of Kiesler’s Mobile Home Library, will illuminate his remarkable attempts to grasp human vision, record dreams, and to correlate libraries, information, images, and consciousness.

Frederick John Kiesler was born into a Jewish family in present-day Ukraine in 1890. He first studied printmaking and painting at the Academy of Fine Arts but would later gain a venerable reputation as an inventive and dynamic theater set designer. In 1923, Kiesler joined de Stijl on the invitation of Theo van Doesburg, making him the group’s youngest member. After immigrating to the United States and settling in New York City in 1926, among other projects, Kiesler designed store windows for Saks Fifth Avenue, the Guild Cinema, and Peggy Guggenheim’s Art of This Century Gallery. He was also appointed as the director of scenic design at the Juilliard School of Music as well as director of his laboratory at Columbia University’s School of Architecture. In contrast to other European émigrés who reshaped American architecture by introducing European modernist building to America, Kiesler is perhaps best known for not building. Kiesler did of course build, most notably exhibition spaces and the Shrine of the Book in Jerusalem. Yet he did not normalize his experimental work by positioning it as preparatory studies for future buildings; his myriad non-building projects were emphatically architectural experiments and architectural declarations.

Frederick Kiesler, among the first grantees of the Graham Foundation, was awarded a Graham Foundation Fellowship in 1957. As a fellow, Kiesler was invited to Chicago in 1958 to present his research and participate in seminars alongside other fellows, including painter Wilfredo Lam, future Pritzker Prize-winning architects Balkrishna V. Doshi and Fumihiko Maki, and sculptor Eduardo Chillida. A selection of documents from the Graham Foundation’s archive in connection to Kiesler's fellowship and the Graham fellow seminar in Chicago will be on view in the Madlener House library.

Frederick Kiesler: Vision Machines was organized by the Jewish Museum, New York, in cooperation with the Austrian Frederick and Lillian Kiesler Private Foundation, Vienna. The Austrian Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, the Civil Service and Sport (BMKOES) has supported the preparation of the exhibition with a grant to the Kiesler Foundation, thus making the preparatory work for the exhibition possible.

The exhibition is curated by Mark Wasiuta; designed by Wasiuta with Farah Alkhoury, and Tigran Kostandyan; and fabricated by Powerhouse Arts Makers.

Mark Wasiuta is senior lecturer in architecture at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP) and codirector of the Critical, Curatorial and Conceptual Practices in Architecture program. Wasiuta is recipient of recent grants from the Onassis Foundation, the Asian Cultural Council, NYSCA, and the Graham Foundation, where he was an inaugural Graham Foundation Fellow. His research exhibition practice focuses on architecture’s media, politics, and environments through under-examined projects of the postwar period. His work has been exhibited widely, including at the Graham Foundation, LAXArt, Storefront for Art and Architecture, the Venice Architecture Biennale, the Sharjah Architecture Triennale, Het Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam, MAXXI, the Deste Foundation, the Luma Foundation, Moderna Museet, and elsewhere. Recent Exhibitions include Frederick Kiesler: Vision Machines at the Jewish Museum in New York City and The Machine at the Heart of Man: Doxiadis’ Informational Modernism at the Onassis Foundation in Athens, Greece. Wasiuta is coauthor and coeditor of Rifat Chadirj: Building Index (Arab Image Foundation, 2018); Dan Graham’s New Jersey (Lars Müller Publishers, 2012), and author of numerous articles.

The Jewish Museum is an art museum committed to illuminating the complexity and vibrancy of Jewish culture for a global audience. Through distinctive exhibitions and programs that present the work of diverse artists and thinkers, the Jewish Museum shares ideas, provokes dialogue, and promotes understanding. It is focused on the interplay between artistic practice—contemporary and historical—with a peerless collection reflecting global Jewish identity and tradition, ancient times to present day. Founded in 1904, the Museum has a global reputation for the quality of its collection, exhibitions, and scholarship. Located on Manhattan's famous Museum Mile, the Museum serves more than 200,000 annual visitors of all religious and cultural backgrounds.

The Austrian Frederick and Lillian Kiesler Private Foundation, Vienna was founded in 1997, after the Republic of Austria and the city of Vienna, with the help of numerous private benefactors, had acquired the descendant’s estate of Frederick Kiesler. It is its objective to explore the heritage of this Austro-American architect (1890-1965) and to ascribe it to the contemporary canon of architectural and artistic practice. In his attempt to achieve a symbiosis of artistic and social domains, Kiesler was oriented towards an interdisciplinary combination of theory and practice. He was active in the various disciplines of architecture, visual arts, design and theatre. The Kiesler Foundation Vienna develops its interdisciplinary and transmedial activities based on this holistic way of thinking. Research projects, symposia and exhibitions examine Kiesler’s oeuvre and its historical impact, attending to aspects of historical inquiry, as well as of contemporary cultural discourse.