With cost and time savings, exhibition sharing seems to be an obvious choice for any cultural organization. AAO decided to take a closer look at members AIA San Francisco and the Virginia Center for Architecture, and their experience with Vertical Gardens - an exhibition conceived by Exit Art. Lauren Rosati, Margie O’Driscoll, Erin Cullerton, and Helene Combs Dreiling offered us their views and personal experiences with this specific exhibition.
Lauren, could you give us some background on Vertical Gardens?
LAUREN (Exit Art): Vertical Gardens was conceived by our Artistic Director Papo Colo for our SEA program, a multimedia exhibition program. The exhibition was curated using our open call model ConcepPlus, for which we publicize the exhibition concept and invite artists to submit relevant works. It featured more than 20 projects, both imaginary and real, by artists and architects that envisioned solutions for
building greener urban environments.
The exhibit traveled to AIA San Francisco, San Francisco, CA (February 18 - April 30, 2010) and to the Virginia Center for Architecture, Richmond, VA (March 10 - May 29, 2010).
Is this your first experience with exhibition sharing? What merits and challenges could you share with your fellow AAO members?
MARGIE (AIA San Francisco): This was not our first experience with exhibition sharing - we share or co-produce exhibitions at least once a year. For a current exhibition, we're being faced with challenges of language, time zones, and funding (our European counterparts are so much better funded for exhibitions and programming than we are in the US).
But we love to do exhibitions because it draws new audiences; gives us the opportunity to develop new partners; and give us a chance to develop really stellar programming.
Why did you believe this exhibition was appropriate for your organization to show?
ERIN (formerly with AIA San Francisco): The show was fundamentally in line with our gallery’s philosophy, but also different enough from our typical exhibitions to make it interesting for our audience. It seemed important to tackle a subject that, on one hand, appeared trendy and fleeting, and on the other hand, could offer real, practical solutions that might reshape methodology and discourse.
HELENE (Virginia Center for Architecture): The Virginia Center for Architecture maintains a commitment to green design principles and this exhibition certainly adheres to that commitment. It is essential in the 21st century that institutions such as ours promote a greater understanding of eco-friendly built environments.
How did Vertical Gardens work within your space?
ERIN: The gallery is approximately 240 linear square feet; it is very flexible with moveable walls. Since there was a ‘living wall’ in the show, we also had to be sensitive to how to best integrate pumps and water sources into the space.
When we borrowed Vertical Gardens we decided to expand its content so that it would feature a more localized viewpoint. We invited local architects and designers with either expertise or a history of investigation into vertical gardening or vertical landscape design.
HELENE: The exhibition certainly presented a few problems for us! The Virginia Center for Architecture boasts walls 16 feet in height, requiring large works to fill the space. However, our space created an amazing opportunity for Mundo Ortega, the guest botanical artist, to create a site-specific living wall measuring 13 feet high and 8 feet wide.
Do you believe Vertical Gardens was a success for your organization?
MARGIE: We received a great deal of press attention; helped develop a new audience in the landscape community; and created an exhibition that our staff loved being around. We wished we could have kept that green wall up forever, but it was very difficult to maintain (especially for a staff which includes no landscape gardeners!).
Vertical Gardens Logistics
LAUREN: We do not require an organization to exhibit the show for any particular length of time, but a contract must be drawn up delimiting their borrowing privileges. The exhibition is available for travel for $3,000, excluding the living wall by Mundo Verde Ortega (which must be included but at a price depending on the space availability / specifications of each institution).
There are no current travel plans for the exhibition, though we are always looking for new potential travel venues. Any interested parties are welcome to contact me at Exit Art.
Lauren Rosati, Assistant Curator, Exit Art, New York, New York, lauren@exitart.org
Margie O’Driscoll, Executive Director, AIA San Francisco, San Francisco, CA
Erin Cullerton, Hon. AIA SF, Founder of Design Agency Co
, Los Angeles, CA, erin@designagencyco.com
Helene Combs Dreiling, FAIA, Executive Director, Virginia Center for Architecture, Richmond, VA
PHOTO CREDIT: All AIA San Francisco photographs are by Bruce Damonte Photography. All other photographs are the property of the Virginia Center for Architecture and Exit Art.
