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Pre-Existing Conditions in New Haven

October 13, 2017 by Elena Platonova

Tom Burr is working out his hometown’s social and political controversies, as well as his own personal struggle, inside the Marcel Breuer-designed, IKEA-owned, abandoned building sitting by the highway in New Haven, Connecticut. The exhibition Burr has assembled in the former Armstrong tire warehouse and executive offices is the first of Bortolami Gallery’s Artist/City projects in which the gallery rents spaces in various locations around the country for artists to transform.

Burr’s choice fell on his native New Haven, a locale deeply engrained in his personal history. The Breuer building, it turned out, was waiting for someone to make use of it. Regular commuters on Interstate 95 who drive by New Haven are accustomed to the sight of the imposing concrete structure hovering over the surrounding landscape like a giant Brutalist spaceship. In 1968, when the Armstrong Rubber Factory commissioned the modernist starchitect Marcel Breuer—a once-faculty member at Bauhaus and New Haven’s own Yale—to design the building, it was positioned in a highly visible spot to be a gatepost to the city at the time of its mid-century urban renewal.

In 1988, Armstrong and its building were purchased by the Italian Pirelli Tire Company. In 2002, the edifice and the surrounding area were acquired by IKEA, which built a regional store on the site. You’d think IKEA would have an idea for repurposing the landmark structure. Alas, after chopping off large part of the building’s foundation—to make room for more parking spots—IKEA left the rest intact but found no use for it.

The Breuer building was an obvious choice for Burr. It had been used and abandoned. It had passed hands. It had suffered violations and become a site of intrusions by the city’s homeless and downtrodden. Burr saw the building as a body, with signs of aging, scars, and bandages he wanted to expose in the project entitled Body/Building: Pre-Existing Conditions.

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The most painful scar is on the long wall opposite the entrance. The wall itself was transported from the far-end of the torn down warehouse to cover the opening left after the demolition. Dramatically highlighting the scar, Burr installed a narrow white banner along the length of the building (“Wide Wall Wound”), pointing to the cement seams below.Continue Reading

A Visit to Stefania Bortolami as She Opens Her New Tribeca Space with Daniel Buren’s Stripes

June 9, 2017 by Elena Platonova

Bortolami Buren Exhibition

Stefania Bortolami has been part of New York’s art scene for years: first, as an artist liaison for Larry Gagosian—after a successful stint with the legendary London dealer Anthony d’Offay; then co-owning a Chelsea gallery with Amalia Dayan and finally, on her own, as the founder of an eponymous gallery five blocks down the street from the previous space. This May, Bortolami relocated again, this time to Tribeca, joining the likes of Team Gallery, The Drawing Center and Alexander and Bonin in gradually forming yet another art neighborhood in the dynamic Downtown New York.

Sun & Stripes

On the sunny morning of our interview in Bortolami’s new space, I take a pause on the pavement across the street from the gallery, on the spot that offers the best view of the neoclassical columns decorating its façade, each covered in vertical black-and-white stripes. Daniel Buren, the French grand maître for years gracing Bortolami’s artist roster, transformed the columns as part of his solo show inaugurating the new gallery. The stripes may well become the hallmark of the building, as Stefania has received a permit to preserve them until 2021.

Bortolami is fashionably late. No wonder—she must still be in the habit of taking a short walk to her former space, located near her Chelsea loft. I take this opportunity to see what the show looks like inside. A row of colorful columns flanks each side of the long hallway leading into the main space of the gallery—a spacious room completely filled with the same square columns, colored blue, red and yellow on each facet, except for the one that faces the back wall. The columns’ back side bears Buren’s signature 8.7-centimeter vertical stripes, alternating in white and black. I walk to the very back and then look up at the only window in the room—an expansive skylight bearing a sequence of multicolored filters applied by Buren, in a manner similar to his decorations on Frank Gehry’s Louis Vuitton Foundation building in Paris. Despite the pure joy projected by this radiant color, I can’t get rid of a murky feeling produced by the view below. When you look back to the room, all the colors completely vanish. All that’s left is a black-and-white wall of striped columns, leading back to the entrance, as if one walked into a jewel box and is forced to leave through a prison gate

Stefania Arrives

Continue Reading

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