October 25 - November 18, 2016
Opening reception: 7-9pm, Tuesday, October 25, 2016
66 West Broadway, New York, NY 10007
Opening reception: 7-9pm, Tuesday, October 25, 2016
66 West Broadway, New York, NY 10007
Is architecture a form of art? Are buildings works of art, or products for human occupation?
Is the practice of architecture about creating artful buildings? Or is it a service of building design, or a system of making products for occupational use?
Are architects artists? Service providers? Or product designers?
To open a discussion on cross-disciplinary practice, Poché Arts Initiative is pleased to announce Crossed Path Identities: works between art and architecture by Minglu Zheng & Razvan Voroneanu. The exhibition will be on view at 66 West Broadway, from October 25th to November 18th. The opening reception will be held on October 25th from 7-9pm.
Both artists are full-time practicing architects with a parallel practice of painting, drawing and teaching. Their multifaceted identities brought the artists interesting perspectives that have fostered an artistic and imaginative expression of construction. Using the same medium, pencil on paper, Minglu and Razvan have explored the ideas of organic growth and tectonic construction through drastically different contents.
Dragon, Minglu Zheng 2014
In Minglu’s work Twelve Zodiacs, she is inspired by the ancient Chinese mythology of the twelve Zodiac animals but gives the popular icons a new architectural interpretation. She draws skeletal anatomy with imagined construction of walls, stairs, and columns. Her work offers an alternative understanding of the body, by architecturalizing it and giving it a new scale. None of her drawings are explicitly about architecture, but all of her works show a unique understanding of architectonic construction.
Lulu’s work is a reverse-anthropomorphic process, where the organic body is reinterpreted into architectural construction. But our city could also be understood as an organic body. The buildings and infrastructures are the skeletons of the city, and the people with their vehicles are the cells running through the skeletal structure. Every time a new tallest building is erected, or every time we re-purpose or re-design an existing infrastructure, we redefine the limit and use of the city structure.
Urban Islands, Rhizomes, and Other Archeologies, Razvan Voroneanu (2012)
In Razvan work, Urban Islands, Rhizomes, and Other Archeologies, he draws an organic city re-born out of apocalyptic ruins due a catastrophic sea level rise. Existing streets are repurposed into waterways, city blocks become islands, commutes redirect vertically through buildings, like the rhizomes of a tree; In mid-level, people build bridges to span from one building to another like tree branches, and the bridges become the major market and social place in this new new city; and on the top level, a canopy of rooftop farms is developed to receive a maximum amount of daylight and harvest to feed the city. Razvan's works are architecturally constructed, with a sublime and poetic expression.
The discussion on interdisciplinary practice is at the center of Poché's focus. Poché Arts Initiative believes an interdisciplinary collaboration will bring together creative minds and create inspiration and transformation in the arts landscape.
poster design by Razvan Voroneanu
text by Ye Zhang
