Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle has been awarded a MacArthur for his thought provoking and beautiful sculptures and video. Portland State has arranged to bring his work, usually shown in museums, to the Littman Gallery. The gallery shows a video and a painting, each referencing the seminal Glass House of architect Mies van der Rohe, founder of architectural modernism.
Mies built the house in 1951 along a river South of Chicago. It was later reprised by Philip Johnson at New Canaan. These gems were birthed in a different era of energy and economic optimism. They dispense with the gable, a strong symbol of home and gemutlichkeit in Europe and the United States, and substitute an efficient flat roof and inside out living on display.
So the metaphoric possibilities possibilities are rich.
The video, Always After (The Glass House), 2006 was inspired by the destruction of the glass sheathing of the S. R. Crown Hall at the Illinois Institute of Technology on the occasion of its renovation, 49 years after its inception. The building was designed by Mies when he chaired the architecture department of the school and houses the department of architecture.
The print, House with Four Columns, 2010 is inspired by the great unbuilt Mies project 50x50. The design, initiated in 1950, was an early American proposal for low cost housing. It echoed Mies' Bauhaus sensibilities: the Bauhaus was birthed in an economically depressed Germany, crippled by war reparations for WWI, and by the great recession.
The Bauhaus vision was for beautifully designed minimalist, inexpensive and durable housing and household goods for the people. Mies was the last director of the Bauhaus. It was closed by Hitler's rise and many of its Jewish creatives came to the United States. Their impact on design, architecture and art, including on Black Mountain College, is unassailable.
Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle speaks at PSU in a paid event April 26. Exhibition at the PSU Littman Gallery in Smith Union. www.pdx.edu/littmanandwhite Littman Gallery:
PSU Smith Hall, Room 250
1825 SW Broadway 7PM-8:30 Free
