Cuban-American Jorge Pardo to Exhibit at the Irish Museum of Modern Art |
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| Written by Rachael Thomas |
| Tuesday, 09 February 2010 01:27 |
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 Jorge Pardo depicts, in chronological
order, all of the artist’s work since the late 1980s, ranging from
sculpture and installations to design and architecture. It includes such
major projects as Oliver, Oliver, Oliver, an outdoor cinema pavilion
created in Braunschweig , Germany , in 2004, and Untitled (Pleasure Boat),
a luxury cruise boat built as a functional sculpture in 2005. Every aspect
of the exhibition, including labels and wall texts, is incorporated into
the wallpaper. On entering the gallery space the viewer is taken on a
journey not only through Pardo’s career but also through a social history
of his adopted city of Los Angeles , with headlines from the LA Times and
photographs of exhibition openings and the architecture of Los Angeles .
Pardo operates at once inside and outside of the art world. He views art largely through the perspective of design and architecture, and making no hierarchical distinctions between his paintings, sculptures, installations, buildings or lamps. Equally important is the framework within which his works are seen, be that a museum or a café. In this, Pardo’s practice taps into a long history of the intersection of art, design and architecture, seen as early as the 1920s and ‘30s in the work of the Hungarian artist László Maholy-Nagy, in whose spacial design project, The Room of Our Time, 1930, all works are presented as reproductions. Pardo extends this line of enquiry, challenging the notion of public and private space and how we use it. Other influences include artist Robert Smithson, exhibition designer Lilly Reich, architects Bruce Goff and Tadao Ando, and the 20th-century Finnish designer Alvar Aalto. A prominent feature in Pardo’s work is his use of domestic materials in a non-domestic space, thus prompting a re-evaluation of space by the viewer. In 2000, Pardo installed Project in the Dia Art Foundation lobby, bookshop and gallery, New York . By cladding the floor and walls in coloured tiles, he transformed the white-cube space, forcing the viewer to consider whether it was still a gallery space. Social interaction is another key concern, and Pardo uses his furniture and beautifully coloured lamps as a means of transforming everyday spaces into aesthetic environments. Bars, restaurants and even public squares are transmuted into hybrids of high-end interior design, gallery spaces and functional social areas. For example, in 2003 Pardo redesigned the interior of The Mountain Bar, a trendy Los Angeles Chinatown haven that attracts both art aficionados and locals.
Jorge Pardo was born in Cuba in 1963 and moved with his family to Chicago when he was six years old. In 1984 he move to California and currently lives and works in Los Angeles . Recent exhibitions include mid-career surveys at K21, Dusseldorf , 2009; Jorge Pardo: House, Museum of Contemporary Art , North Miami, 2007-08; theanyspacewhatever, Guggenheim , New York , 2008, and Fundació La Caixa, Barcelona , 2004. Architectural projects and non-specific spaces have included renovating a house in Merida, Mexico, 2009; re-designing display cases for the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC, 2007; creating a restaurant, Untitled (Café-Restaurant), 2002, for the K21 Museum in Düsseldorf; and 4166 Sea View Lane, 1998, a house built as an artwork for the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, in which he now resides. The exhibition is curated by Rachael Thomas, Senior Curator: Head of Exhibitions, IMMA. Visit : http://www.imma.ie/en/index. Click on logo below to add this article to your favorite Social Website ~ |
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