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30/7/2004

Archigramm and Thomas Florschuetz

Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead

Archigram
Saturday 31 July – Sunday 31 October 2004
Level 4

This summer BALTIC celebrates the visually spectacular, vibrant and optimistic Archigram, the British architects whose dynamic and provocative visions of future life brought the pop spirit to the architectural avante garde of 1960s Britain, in Level 4 art space from 31 July – 31 October 2004. The exhibition recaptures the excitement and energy of Archigram’s original architectural projects, through installations, inflatables and films, and hundreds of visionary collages and drawings.

A combination of the words ‘Architecture’ and ‘Telegram’ and designed to convey a sense of urgency, Archigram was born around a nucleus of young British architects, Warren Chalk, Peter Cook, Dennis Crompton, David Greene, Ron Herron and Michael Webb, in London in 1961. The group held the belief that architects had a responsibility to develop new ways of responding to social change, and rebelled against the conservative architectural establishment.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s Archigram developed its ideas in increasingly ambitious visions of alternatives to conventional housing and urban spaces. Inspired by comic books, the Beatles, space travel and moon landings, new technology and science fiction, the group embraced the technological advances of the time with optimism. Although few buildings were realised, Archigram’s influence is visible in Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano’s Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and in the work of Rem Koolhaas and Zaha Hadid.

The determination of the group to forward the boundaries of architecture has ensured that Archigram remains an enduring inspiration, not only to architects and designers today but also in the wider world of popular culture which its members so enthusiastically embraced. This exhibition presents Archigram to a new generation.

Visit BALTIC between 31 July and 5 September and pick up a free family guide to Archigram. Please visit www.balticmill.com for Archigram October talks programme. A limited edition print of Monte-Carlo-Banquet will be available from the BALTIC shop.

This exhibition is curated by the Design Museum in collaboration with Archigram and designed by Archigram.

Archigram
The Archigram group came together in the early 1960s. There was only a short period of about two years when all the members of the group were in the same place at the same time and this was when they produced their first major exhibition ‘Living City’, shown at the ICA, London in 1963. In 1969 the Archigram group won an international competition for the design of an entertainment centre in Monte Carlo. They continued to work together until the mid 1970’s, completing amongst other projects, a swimming pool for pop singer Rod Stewart and an adventure playground for Milton Keynes, however in 1974 as a result of the economic depression the Monte Carlo job was cancelled and the group ceased to run its architectural practice. As a result, members of the group dispersed but remained close friends.

Warren Chalk continued to write and teach in North America and in the UK, principally at the Architectural Association, London. He died in 1987.

Peter Cook is currently Bartlett Professor of Architecture at University College London. He will be the curator of the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale of Architecture 2004.

Dennis Crompton now tutors the masters programme at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London and continues to design books and exhibitions.

David Greene is Professor of Architecture at the University of Westminster, London. He continues to write and develop collaborative theoretical projects under the name Casa Verde.

Ron Herron taught at the Architectural Association form 1965 to 1993. In 1981 he formed Herron Associates with his two sons and in 1993 he became professor and head of the School of Architecture at the University of East London. Ron Herron died in 1994.

Mike Webb has lived for many years in New York and has taught at Cooper Union, Columbia Barnard and Princeton Universities and has exhibited his work widely, both in the US and in Europe.

In 2002 The Archigram Group were awarded the Royal Gold Medal for Architecture and Archigramers Peter Cook and David Greene were the joint winners of the RIBA's Annie Spink Award for Excellence in Education.

This large travelling exhibition of Archigram's work has returned to the UK from a tour of America and the Far East. The exhibition was presented at the Design Museum, London, from 3 April to 4 July 2004. For further information about Archigram visit www.archigram.net

In the image Suburban Sets Project.

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THOMAS FLORSCHUETZ
Are You Talking To Me?

Saturday 31 July – Sunday 19 September 2004
Ground Floor & Level 2

BALTIC presents Berlin-based photographer Thomas Florschuetz’s first major exhibition outside Germany. Are You Talking To Me? includes works spanning a 10 year period from the nineties and the beginning of the 21st century, shown in BALTIC’s Ground Floor and Level 2 art spaces from
31 July – 19 September.

Considered one of the most significant fine art photographers of his generation, this exhibition is a perfect demonstration of the artist’s unusually expressive range of photography, and comprises large scale colour prints often produced and hung together in series.

The artist’s subject matter often derives from an interrogation of his own physicality through close-up photographs of parts of his own body. In these works Florschuetz himself is the subject matter and he very decidedly presents body fixated photographic selves - insuring his own physical existence. Other series of works in the exhibition focus on iconic modern architectural details, for example the Bauhaus staircase or a mies van der rohe building or public school buildings from Oscar Niemeyer in Rio de Janeiro. Despite their large scale, the works presented in this exhibition are intimate and personal images.

Open to motifs and themes, Florschuetz systematically poses questions that revolve around photography’s limits and its potentialities. At the same time he indirectly opens up the medium to new ways and defines photography as a pictorial art that need not fear any comparison with painting. Florschuetz’s work demonstrates an interest in form and colour, but there is an underlying tension or implication that perhaps something less certain and more troubling lies beneath the surface. Thomas Florschuetz was born 1957 in Zwickau, Germany. He lives and works in Berlin. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue produced by Kunstmuseum Bonn, which will be available from the BALTIC shop at a special exhibition price for the duration of the show.

Are You Talking To Me? is a collaboration between BALTIC and Kunstmuseum Bonn


Thomas Florschuetz
Thomas Florschuetz is one of the most significant photographers currently working in Germany, with an established reputation both at home and abroad. He was born in Zwickau, Germany in 1957 and lives and works in Berlin. He was awarded the first prize for the Young European Photographers award in Frankfurt in 1987 and other awards include the Dorothea von Stretten Art Prize in Bonn in 1994 and the German Critics Award for Fine Arts in 2004.

A talk by Thomas Florschuetz has been organised in conjunction with the exhibition taking place at BALTIC on Thursday 9 September from 18.30-19.30.
Places are free but pre-booking is essential.


BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art
South Shore Road, Gateshead NE8 3BA

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