Exhibition Design: The Latest Architecture and News

From March 30 to June 10, 2018, the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain will host Junya Ishigami's exhibition, Freeing Architecture. This is the first major solo exhibition that the Fondation Cartier in Paris has devoted to an architect, and fitting that it would lend itself to an important and singular figure of Japan's young architecture scene.

Ishigami - winner of the Golden Lion award at the Venice Biennale in 2010 - has instilled this conceptual body of work with his trademark flair: calm, free fluidity, with bright tones and playful curves. The projects in the exhibition range from large scale models to films and drawings, and when placed in the context of the exhibition, they bring to life Jean Nouvel's iconic building as well.

Laurian Ghinitoiu gives us a glimpse inside the exhibition ahead of the opening day tomorrow. His photos reveal the lightness and ethereal quality of Ishigami's hand. 

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Thinking broadly of architecture, the masterpieces of the past inevitably come to mind; buildings constructed to withstand the passage of time, that have found an ally in age, cementing themselves in the history of humanity. Permanence, however, is a hefty weight to bear and architecture that is, due to its program, ephemeral should not be cast aside as "lesser-than."

AMO, the research and think tank wing of OMA, has completed a flexible new exhibition space for the permanent collection of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. Named Stedelijk BASE, the bespoke display system is constructed from “very thin yet solid” free-standing steel partitions that interlock like puzzle-pieces to create an open-ended flow for viewing art from the late 19th and 20th centuries.

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Update 11/9/17: We've added a gallery of items from the show to the post!

Diller Scofidio + Renfro have been selected to collaborate with The Costume Institute on a new exhibition at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art focused on the relationship between fashion, religious art and the devotional practices and traditions of Catholicism.

Titled “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination,” the exhibition will feature fashion and religious artworks from the Met’s collection, as well as more than 50 objects and garments from the Sistine Chapel sacristy, many of which have never been seen before outside of The Vatican.

Organized by Frieze Academy on Friday 6 October, from 10am – 4.30pm at The Royal Institution in London, this full-day conference will be hosted by Alice Rawsthorn with:

The inaugural show at the new London Design Museum, Fear and Love, presents a collection of "reactions to a complex world." Featuring eleven specially-commissioned installations designed by the likes of OMA/AMO, Hussein Chalayan, Andrés Jaque and Metahaven, the spatial context which frames them is the work of Sam Jacob Studio.

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Last month we spoke with Kulapat Yantrasast, Co-Founder and Creative Director of the LA-based design firm wHY. On the heels of the opening of Harvard Art Museums - for which Yantrasast collaborated on the designs of the exhibition spaces - we wanted to learn more about his approach to designing the galleries for Harvard. “One of the things that I'm super sensitive about is the identify of the experience. Harvard, in particular, is a university museum. So first and foremost it's a place for students and faculty to spend time looking at things closely. Because of that, we want to make sure that a group of 15 people can sit or stand around an art object and could really have a discussion,” Yantrasast explained.

wHY has carried out a wide range of museum and gallery projects, including the Grand Rapids Art Museum, the Royal/T project and the renovation of the galleries at the Art Institute of Chicago. Read the full interview with Yantrasast below to learn more about the challenges of gallery design and how technology is affecting museums exhibitions.

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