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21/3/2009

Boolean Valley

Museum of Contemporary Art - MOCA, Los Angeles

The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA), announces the launch of Craft & Computation, a new series of exhibitions exploring the convergence of digital technology and handcraft techniques in contemporary design practice. Boolean Valley, a unique collaboration between potter Adam Silverman and architect Nader Tehrani, is the first exhibition in the series and is on view from March 22 through July 5, 2009, at MOCA Pacific Design Center. A topographic sculptural landscape that utilizes the principle of Boolean logic in its design, Boolean Valley was originally commissioned by Montalvo Arts Center in Saratoga, California, and curated by Julie Lazar. The project comes to MOCA as a site-specific installation organized by MOCA Curator of Architecture and Design Brooke Hodge.

“The Craft & Computation series exemplifies MOCA’s continuing engagement with the most current issues and practices in art, architecture, and design,” said MOCA Chief Executive Officer Charles E. Young. “This dynamic new series of exhibitions is the thoughtful result of our ongoing partnership with the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood—a recognized resource for the design community. The MOCA Pacific Design Center space is a wonderful opportunity to bring MOCA’s innovative programming to a broad-based audience.”

“I am especially pleased that Boolean Valley inaugurates the Craft & Computation series,” added MOCA Curator of Architecture & Design Brooke Hodge. “The Silverman/Tehrani collaboration lends itself perfectly to the series, and both are artists that I am excited to have the opportunity to work with. I am grateful to Julie Lazar for bringing this project to our attention and for working so closely with MOCA and the artists to create something special for MOCA Pacific Design Center.”

Boolean Valley is a sculptural landscape of nearly 400 cut clay objects glazed in cobalt and black with silicon carbide added. It is the result of an extensive collaboration between potter Adam Silverman and architect Nader Tehrani, who met as undergraduate architecture students at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). Originally commissioned by Montalvo Arts Center in Saratoga, California, as part of AGENCY: The Work of Artists, a 2009 arts initiative curated by Julie Lazar, Boolean Valley was exhibited at the San Jose Museum of Art and Montalvo Arts Center prior to coming to MOCA.

At each venue, the artists have used Boolean logic to develop a specific configuration or pattern for the ceramic objects that responds to the museum’s architecture in a new and provocative way. Named after mathematician George Boole, Boolean logic calibrates the geometry of intersecting objects, with the Venn diagram being one of its most common applications. In Boolean Valley, dome-shaped ceramic units are cut and glazed horizontally—with actual and virtual intersections—to produce a striated undulating landscape. MOCA’s presentation includes plans and perspectives showing the evolution of the work at each site, along with an exclusive new animation created by Office dA, Nader Tehrani’s internationally renowned architecture studio.

About Craft & Computation
MOCA’s Craft & Computation exhibition series, organized by Curator of Architecture & Design Brooke Hodge for MOCA Pacific Design Center, explores the convergence between the digital and the handmade in contemporary design practice. In recent years, architects and designers have adopted increasingly complex computer technology to visualize intricate spaces and structures. However, methods of fabrication and production have not yet caught up, especially at an architectural scale, and designers still need to rely on the human hand to craft, cast, glaze, weave, thread, and knot various materials into their final desired forms. The projects that comprise Craft & Computation will demonstrate how these two different ways of working come together to create ingenious spatial configurations and structures.

About the Artists
Since graduating from Rhode Island School of Design, Adam Silverman has pursued many creative endeavors—architect, clothing designer, potter—all of which are unified through his interests in structure, engineering, and the relationship of each medium to the human body. In 2002, Silverman decided to work exclusively in clay, and founded Atwater Pottery that year. Today he also serves as studio director of Heath Ceramics, Los Angeles. Silverman’s work has been exhibited internationally in museums and galleries and featured in numerous publications from The New York Times to GQ. He is represented by Tomio Koyama Gallery in Tokyo.

Nader Tehrani is principal, together with Monica Ponce de Leon, of Office dA, an internationally renowned architecture firm based in Boston. Office dA has completed projects from California to China that range in scale from furniture to urban design, including BP Helios House (a sustainable gas station in Los Angeles), the Rhode Island School of Design Library, Tongxian Arts Center in Beijing, and the Elemental Chile community housing project, among others. In addition to his professional practice, Tehrani is a professor of architecture at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Office dA has received numerous international awards including the National Design Award in Architecture.

Boolean Valley is commissioned by Montalvo Arts Center through the 2009 arts initiative AGENCY: The Work of Artists. The initiative is funded in part by grants from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, The James Irvine Foundation, and Nimoy Foundation; and gifts from Mickie and Gibson Anderson, Jo and Barry Ariko, L. J. Cella, Wanda Kownacki and John Holton, Sally and Don Lucas, Judy and George Marcus, Kathie and Robert Maxfield, and Joan and Frederick M. Nicholas.

MOCA’s presentation is supported by The Ron Burkle Endowment for Architecture and Design Programs. Additional generous support is provided by Jean and John Geresi. In-kind media support is provided by Los Angeles magazine. KCRW 89.9 FM is the Official Media Sponsor of MOCA. Generous support for MOCA Pacific Design Center is provided by Charles S. Cohen.

Media contact:
Lyn Winter Tel 213/633-5390 lwinter@moca.org
Jessica Youn Tel 213/633-5322 jyoun@moca.org

MOCA Art Talk: Boolean Valley Opening-day Art Talk with Adam Silverman and Nader Tehrani 03.22.09

MOCA
250 South Grand Avenue - Los Angeles

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