LONDON, July 27 — A major exhibition exploring the relationship between photography and architecture is set to be unveiled in London this autumn.
“Constructing Worlds” brings together over 250 works — some rarely seen and many shown in the UK for the first time — by 18 leading photographers from the 1930s to the present.
The show, opening at Barbican Art Gallery this September, will take visitors on a global journey of 20th and 21st century architecture, with highlights including Berenice Abbott’s ground-breaking photographs charting the birth of the skyscraper in New York, through to the dramatic growth of urbanisation in China and the devastating effects of war in Afghanistan.
“Photography and architecture have a long and shared history and yet amazingly this is the first major exhibition in London to throw light on this relationship,” said Jane Alison, head of visual arts at Barbican.
“It is a must-see for anyone interested in how we understand architecture and equally the dramatic global shifts in society in the post-war period.”
The exhibition opens with Berenice Abbott’s photographed project “Changing New York” (1935-1939), which captured the transformation of the Big Apple into a modernist metropolis, before moving on to Walker Evans’s project of photographing the vernacular architecture of the Deep South.
Julius Shulman’s photographs of the “Case Study Houses” programme (1945-1966) capture the experimental architecture and ideal modern lifestyle encapsulated in California in the 1950s, while Le Corbusier features in Lucien Hervé’s cinematic documentation of Chandigarh — a modernist symbol of a newly independent India.
The exhibition culminates with an exploration of cities experiencing dramatic changes, conveyed through Guy Tillim’s exposé of late-modernist-era colonial structures in the Congo, Bas Princen’s documentation of the urban transformation in the Middle East, and Nadav Kander’s portrayal of the impact of colossal modern construction.
The Barbican’s new season also comprises a dedicated film strand, “City Visions”, focusing on the energy and complexity of global city living, and a brand new film commission and residency by Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoine, best known for their now legendary take on Rem Koolhaas’s “Maison à Bordeaux”.
“Constructing Worlds” will run from September 25-January 11, 2015. — AFP-Relaxnews
