The recurring question of whether architecture is an art does not allow for a simple answer. The question itself, however, exposes the ways in which the concept of architecture has changed and is changing. The status of architecture has shifted alongside the concepts of art, culture and the creative economy.
Trading between Architecture and Art does not attempt to answer the question of whether architecture is an art, but considers the question itself: how it affects architecture, and art, as a practice and a discipline. This volume aims to identify the overlaps and misalignments between concepts and categories implied in the question, and to trace the impact of these on the ways that art and architecture are valued. By unpacking the historical and current interests at stake in defining architecture as art,
Trading between Architecture and Art reconsiders the place of architecture in contemporary culture.
Since the 1960s, art and architecture have experienced a series of radical and reciprocal trades. While artists have simulated ‘architectural’ means like plans and models, built structures and pavilions outside art institutions, or intervened in urban and public spaces, architects have employed ‘artistic’ strategies inside art institutions, in exhibitions, biennales and art events. At the same time, art galleries and museums have combined both activities in an interdisciplinary, hybrid field, playing with the conditional differences between inside and outside the institution.
Trading between Architecture and Art zooms in on specific examples or ‘cases’ of these two-way transactions: artists adopting architectural means on the one hand, and architects adopting artistic strategies on the other. In particular, it presents in-depth studies of both historical and contemporary examples of the transposition of means and strategies from architecture to art, and vice versa, up to the point that established understandings of institutional categories, disciplinary concepts, and concrete practices become interestingly opaque, and meanings provocatively uncertain.
Sinds de jaren '60 hebben er tussen kunst en architectuur een reeks radicale, wederkerige transacties plaatsgevonden. Kunstenaars begonnen architecturale middelen zoals plattegronden en maquettes te gebruiken in hun werk, bouwden structuren en paviljoens buiten kunstinstituten, en deden interventies in de publieke, stedelijke ruimte. In dezelfde periode begonnen architecten 'artistieke' strategieën toe te passen binnen kunstinstellingen, exposities en op biënnales. Galeries en museums op hun beurt begonnen beide disciplines samen te brengen in een interdisciplinair, hybride veld, spelend met de respectievelijke beperkingen en mogelijkheden van de ruimte binnen en buiten de instelling. Het boek zoomt in op specifieke voorbeelden en casussen van deze wederkerige uitwisselingen: kunstenaars die architecturale middelen inzetten aan de ene kant, en architecten die artistieke strategieën toepassen aan de andere kant. Het boek presenteert diepgaande studies naar zowel historische als hedendaagse voorbeelden van de transpositie van middelen en strategieën van architectuur naar kunst en vice versa. Het laat zien hoe in dit veld de gevestigde begrippen van institutionele categorieën, concepten en concrete praktijken op losse schroeven komen te staan, en hoe in dit spanningsveld nieuwe betekenissen ontstaan.
