Royal Nonesuch Gallery, “Space, Time and Architecture”

by admin on January 22, 2012

At Royal Nonesuch Gallery, artists Luca Antonucci and Cybele Lyle explore, reinvent, and reform the once-formidable ideas in author Sigfried Giedion’s Space, Time and Architecture. Giedion’s book, which arranged a comprehensive history and scrutinized the cultural implications of modern architecture and urban planning (as of the book’s publication in 1941) explored how urban planning and modern architecture was increasingly separating the common dweller’s reason and intellect with their emotional connections. While doing so, the book drew a deep parallel to the same schism occurring between art and science. Royal Nonesuch Gallery writes since the publication of this book in 1941, “the current state of art and science, and its negotiation of space demand a revision of this work and suggest a converging of these two parallel fields.”

Cybele Lyle’s collaged photographs of her own surrounding architecture and environment connect constructed spaces with subjectivity. Many of Lyle’s most moving photographic works are those comprised of open, natural environments intersected by another collage plane of built environments, with either layer consisting of a road occupied by travellers or other man-made element like a fence, town, or a harbor. A mirror of the artist’s reality, these photographs make evident the intimate relationship possible with such fabricated spaces.

Luca Antonucci’s project, “Space Time and Architecture-Revised” is a direct interaction with the book and its possibily outmoded ideas. He describes the process as such in three steps:

Firstly, over 20 percent of the text has been crossed out with a black felt marker leaving only the contours of letters, forming a more condensed history of space.

Secondly, close to 70 percent of the book has been covered with white ink, creating a thin sheer. The blurry suggestion of knowledge occupies each page, but the hard fact of its printing obscured to a vague impression.

Thirdly, the images are left to stand alone, allowing them to be read separately from the intended context of their caption.

In this new form, a visual metaphor is achieved. Through its editing, a ratio of dark matter, visible matter, and dark energy is represented in literal terms. The book is reinvented as an object that represents the knowledge it fails to hold on to and the history of science, art and architecture are revealed as dynamic and interweaved.

Along with Antonucci’s complete revision on the book which is on exhibit, he also created six transparent prints of sections in the book most representative of his intent to directly reinvent and revise each of Giedion’s major subjects and theses, placed on the wall juxtaposed with Lyle’s photographs.

“Space, Time and Architecture” will be at Royal Nonesuch through February 26, 2012.