Turning the Display of Objects into an Art1

The Shift from the Architect to the Artist

Angelique Campens

Throughout the twentieth century to present day, display of art has taken on various levels 1. Philip Johnson on Lilly Reich’s
exhibition design as quoted in Mary
of significance, and exhibition design as an aspect of architecture has been the object of Anne Staniszewski, The Power of
inquiry for both architects and artists. By the end of the 1960s, there was a marked shift Display: A History of Exhibition
away from architects as designers of exhibition spaces as artists began to take on that role Installations at the Museum of
themselves. Today, numerous artists play with the exhibition space and display of art as the Modern Art (Cambridge: MIT Press,
1998), 37.
artwork itself. These shifts in the history of exhibition design provide a helpful insight into 2. “Brutalism, the style in which
the analogous relationship between art and architecture. In what follows, I discuss specific a great part of the museums built
examples and milestone moments in that history, such as the work of BBPR and Aldo van in the 1960s and the beginning
of the1970s were designed and
Eyck’s pavilion for Sonsbeek ’66, as well as relate them to the use of exhibition design by which in great part derives from
artists working today. the béton brut (raw concrete)
work by Le Corbusier, has come
Display of Art in Modern Times to the Brutalist Period to be associated with a number
of definitions and loaded with a
plethora of diverse connotations
Generally the most experimental exhibition designs date from the avant-garde period and when applied to architecture. The
provoked the question: what is more important, the art object or the display? Additionally, difficulty in setting out a coherent
narrative for the movement and its
exhibition design became an important concern for architects during the period of development is twofold. First, the
modernism including that of brutalism.2 meaning of brutalism has come to

Some of the most famous examples of exhibition design in the avant-garde period be somewhat taken for granted as
are well documented in the first chapter of the noted publication The Power of Display by a formal style in the architecture of
post-war institutional buildings. At
Mary Anne Staniszewski.3 In the subsequent chapters, she explores different iterations the same time, the words “brutalism”
of exhibition design at the Museum of Modern Art in New York from its inauguration in and “brutalist” have been used for
1929 to 1990. In her first chapter Framing Installation Design, she states, “Innovative a range of diverse architecture,
each underpinned by different
exhibition design flourished in Europe and the United States from the 1920s through the approaches to both form and ethics,
1960s, with most experimentation taking place through the 1950s. [Herbert] Bayer, like and with a different geographical
Frederick Kiesler, Lilly Reich, El Lissitzky, and Giuseppe Terragni, was one of the many mapping. Second, most theoretical
artists, designers, and architects who considered exhibition design to be an important work on brutalism stems from the
seminal work of Reyner Banham,
aspect—in some cases the most important aspect—of their work.”4 It was at this time, as who offered the first impressively
these exemplary exhibitions were realized during the avant-garde period of modernism, comprehensive, though also
that exhibition design acquired the standing of an independent and important architectural geographically and historically
limited, appraisal of brutalism in the
category. Furthermore, from the 1930s on, the question of “how to display art” developed context of his discussion of the “New
into a significant topic of consideration for art institutions and national pavilions at world Brutalism” movement, and whose
expositions. This new inquiry was primarily educational and pedagogical but it also critical analysis continues to be an
addressed how these innovations in display added to an institutional or national prestige, important frame of reference for any
work on brutalism today.” Reyner
or fulfilled various political and propagandistic goals. Renowned architects or artists Banham, The New Brutalism: Ethic
were appointed to provide this service, and displays of art gained prominence during or Aesthetic? (London: Architectural
this time (so much so that at times, the display became more important than the art Press, 1966).
3. Mary Anne Staniszewski, The
objects themselves). After the heyday of the mid-fifties and the sixties, exhibition design Power of Display: A History of
subsequently declined in its importance mostly due to the fact that the definition of art Exhibition Installations at the
itself was becoming more expanded; 5 art was increasingly created in situ, or incorporated Museum of Modern Art (Cambridge:
exhibition design directly into its own making. MIT Press, 1998).
4. ibid. 3, 3.
In relation to these changes, Staniszewski states, “These areas of interests and 5. “The 1970s witnessed an even
experiments in exhibition technique were reconfigured in much of the work that developed greater dispersion of the defining
in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The exhibition designs of the international avant- traits of sculpture. In the introduction
to his The Sculptural Imagination
gardes of the first half of the century can be seen as the prehistory of one of the dominant (2001) Alex Potts offers a historical
practices of contemporary visual culture: installation art.”6 Similarly, in his text Politics outline of the development of
of Installation, Boris Groys takes note of the moment when the artists gained more sculptural forms. He highlights the
autonomy and could control how their work was installed. “Artists have required the right seventies as the period in which
the traditional boundary between
to make sovereign decisions regarding the content and the form of their work beyond any painting as a two dimensional art
explanation or justification vis-à-vis the public.”7 Staniszewski attributes the reason for this and sculpture as a three dimensional
shift from the architect to the artist to the increasing importance of the artist’s role in the object finally becomes eroded
in what Rosalind Kraus famously
creation of their own display of art and exemplifies this point with the Information 8 show referred to as “sculpture in the
curated by Kynaston McShine in 1970 at MoMA. For this exhibition, 150 artists were asked expanded field.” He defines the
to send in proposals to make site-specific works from which the curator selected close to new forms emerging at that time themselves. In other words, museums become privileged analytical sites within which we
as “A [type of] sculpture no longer
a hundred participants. This idea of creating site-specific works became an important new circumscribed by a monumentalising
can begin to unpack a particular architectural movement. In what follows I attempt such an
model in curatorial history. As Staniszewski observes, “The installation design, previously or classicising ideal, or by a exercise in relation to what I have termed “sculptural brutalism.”
the responsibility of the Museum as an institution, was now incorporated within the creative modernist cult of the self-contained BBPR’s design for the Museo del Castello Sforzesco is perfectly situated at this
dimensions of the artist’s pieces.”9 art object. Sculpture was now seen intersection as I described above. Their exhibition design establishes an overall mood or
to deal in spaces and environments
The transfer of this responsibility to the artist went hand in hand with a preoccupation and assemblages of objects.” These an atmosphere, and could almost come across as a work of installation art. It combines
with the enlargement of the scale of sculpture. In his book Minimal Art: The Critical new assemblages and installations black steel beams and walnut wood panels that are used to support displays of art objects.
Perspective, Frances Colpitt suggests that, “By 1966, the larger scale of sculpture was were understood to encompass the The exhibition spaces are lit by massive black steel lamps and the benches are made of
viewer, much in the same way that
commonly interpreted as architectural, not only in terms of appearance, but because of the same wood panels without decorative additions in a naked show of pure material.
architecture did. With these radical
interaction between spectator and object, and technical principles.”10 On the other hand, changes within the field of sculpture, Architectural bases are suggestive of sculptural forms, and the most distinct feature of
the late 1950s witnessed a turning point in regards to the works that were shown in the scope of the architecture it this exhibition design is the presentation of the Rondanini Pietà by Michelangelo.16 BBPR
exhibitions, shifting from a tendency to show existing works to a preference for creating influenced and the manner in which chose to isolate the marble sculpture with two semi-circular walls comprised of stone
it did so also becomes less easily
new works for particular exhibitions. identifiable. From that point on, not slabs, creating an intimate space of observation. Upon taking a short flight of stairs down
This was the case for Information at MoMA, but was also true for other major only did sculptural architecture take to the space where the Rondanini Pietà is located, visitors initially encounter the massive 16. BBPR, exhibition design for the
exhibitions at the time.11 The 1967 exhibition Scale As Content, curated by Eleanor Green on a multiplicity of forms, but the walls that they must go around. Only when they go around them, do they discover the presentation of the Rondanini Pietà
intended experience of the building by Michelangelo, Museo del Castello
at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., was also influenced by and attempted and its possible relation to sculptural
sculpture in its overwhelming presence. This revealing and guided way of looking at a work Sforzesco, c. 1964.
to work through these tendencies. The exhibition, which brought together three sculptors— assemblages also had to be taken of art is similar to the way Aldo van Eyck applies concrete cylinders to direct the flow of
Barnett Newman, Ronald Bladen, and Tony Smith—was the first to commission artists into account.” Alex Potts, The visitors as I will discuss later in the text.
to produce work especially for the show,12 and it did so with a very particular concept Sculptural Imagination: Figurative, While BBPR manifests a unique synthesis of brutalist influences, brutalism as an
Modernist, Minimalist, 1st ed (New
in mind. As Andrew Hudson points out in Artforum, Green “...conceived the idea of the Haven & London: Yale University architectural movement is often associated with the ideology of New Brutalism. This
exhibition after the discussions on scale acting as content with Al Held in the summer of Press, 2001), 3. post-war British architectural movement is associated with the architects Alison and Peter
1966.”13 In his 1967 text Models and Monuments: the Plague of Architecture, Dan Graham 6. Staniszewski, 3. Smithson whose work is characterized by the concept of under-design. The husband and
7. Groys states earlier in the same
also pointed out a number of exhibitions that were dealing with the issue of scale and text, “In the course of the Modern
wife duo organized several important exhibitions that put forth tenets of brutalism including
elaborated on how the artists were referring to architecture in their work. He cites three era, however, artists began to the 1953 Parallel of Life and Art 17 at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London. Working
exhibitions—Scale. Models and Drawings at Dwan Gallery; Macrostructures at Richard assert the autonomy of their art— with Nigel Henderson and Edouardo Paolozzi, the Smithsons showcased a collection of
Feigen Gallery; and Architecture Sculpture, Sculpture Architecture at the Visual Arts understood as autonomy from 122 Brutalist images: “The exhibition dealt primarily with bizarre or anti-aesthetic images 17. Installation view of Parallel of Life
public opinion and public taste.” and Art, 1953.
Gallery in New York—and explains how these proposals were “…for outside work of public Boris Groys, Politics of Installation, culled from newspapers, magazines, scientific and anthropological textbooks, or extreme 18. Banham, 61.
context. Many of the models shown were architectural—either monumental ‘projects’ or eflux journal #2 01/ 2009. eflux. modes of vision such as X-rays and micrographs.”18 Another important exhibition that the
architectural monuments.”14 com/journal/politics-of-installation/ Smithsons took part in organizing is This Is Tomorrow19 at the Whitechapel Art Gallery
(accessed June 6, 2015).

Furthermore the installations of artworks by artists at the end of the 1960s started to in 1956, a show that was divided into 12 different groupings of architects, sculptors,
mimic the aesthetics of, and reference materials in didactic and pedagogical exhibits in the and painters. The Smithsons yet again formed a group with Henderson and Paolozzi,
aforementioned avant-garde shows. For example, charts, photographs, texts, and statistical constructing their part of the exhibition titled Patio and Pavilion.
documents made frequent appearances in the artworks from this period. The overarching The exhibition design of Alison and Peter Smithson in Parallel of Life and Art,
concept of the display of art as determined by the institution was disappearing, as that role which featured photographs hanging from the ceiling diagonally and horizontally, was a
was being taken over by artists in their presentation of conceptual art. continuation of the earlier ideas of El Lissitzky presented in the Soviet cinema section
of the exhibition Film und Foto 20 organized by Deutscher Werkbund in Stuttgart, 1929.
Sculptural brutalism in exhibition design For his presentation, Lissitzky hung photographs close to the ceiling using a modular
installation display frame he designed. Lissitzky’s design in turn was reminiscent of the
The architect as exhibition designer earlier works of Friedrich Kiesler, the Austrian-American architect, theoretician, theater
8. Installation view of Information, designer, artist, and sculptor.21 In 1924, Kiesler invented the L and T system (Leger- und
Concurrent with the shift from the institution as the initiator of the display of art to the MoMA, 1970 Trägersystem), which offered an alternative to a more traditional exhibition design; it
artist as the initiator, architectural design of exhibition spaces became subordinate to art 9. ibid. 3, 276.
10. Frances Colpitt, Minimal Art: introduced flexible units and displays that were horizontal as well as vertical, and the T
whereas in the past, architectural design had been as important as the objects of art. We The Critical Perspective (Seattle: system had cantilevers that the viewers could adjust to their eye level. The exhibitions were
find examples of this shift in Lina Bo Bardi’s interior installation display from 1957-68 at the University of Washington Press, thus able to become modular and be read as a sort of a collage. Exhibition designs by the
Museum of Art of São Paulo,15 consisting of concrete cubic blocks with enormous glass 1997), 79.
Smithsons and many others were a continuation of this precedent. 19. Installation view of This is
plates, and in Carlo Scarpa’s use of abstraction, geometry, and color in the overall theme 11. One particularly noteworthy Tomorrow, Whitechapel Art Gallery,
example was the shift from On the other end of this arc of progression, BBPR’s Museo del Castello Sforzesco 1956
of Museo di Castelvecchio in Verona, 1958-64. Also significant are the designs of BBPR, Documenta 3 (1964) to Documenta demonstrates a specific moment in brutalism when exhibition design by architects had to
an architectural partnership founded in Milan in 1932 by four architects who combined 4 (1968), and even more so in the make way for a new period hailed in right after Aldo van Eyck’s presentation of his pavilion
elements of Italian rationalism and brutalism: Gianluigi Banfi (1910-1945), Lodovico shift to Documenta 5 (1972).
12. Eleanor Green cited in Andrew for Sonsbeek ’66.
Barbiano di Belgiojoso (1909-2004), Enrico Peressutti (1908-1976), and Ernesto Nathan Hudson, “Scale as Content at the
Rogers (1909-1968). BBPR had the opportunity to design the interior exhibition space for Corcoran” Artforum, December Before the breaking point: the Aldo van Eyck pavilion
several institutions including the Museo del Castello Sforzesco in Milan (1945-56; 1962- 1967, 46.
63). Their design for the Museo del Castello Sforzesco most precisely illustrates what I call 13. ibid. 12.
14. Dan Graham, “Models and Aldo van Eyck’s pavilion reveals something of this period of transition in the development of
“sculptural brutalism” in my doctoral dissertation. Monuments: the Plague of exhibition design when artists began to take over the role of the architect (remarkably, many
Sculptural brutalism focuses on the intersection of brutalism as an architectural Architecture” Artsmagazine, March artists today are starting to refer back to this period). For Sonsbeek ’66 (Internationale
movement and the art forms that were developed and explored at that time. Research into 1967 vol 41 no. 5, 32.
Beeldententoonstelling in de open lucht / the 5th International Sculpture Exhibition in the 20. Lissitzky, cinema section with
the formal relationship between brutalist architecture and sculptural design in specific open air) in Arnhem held from May 27 through September 25, 1966, Aldo van Eyck (1918- film-viewing devices, Film und Foto,
exhibition design renders insights into the particular influences through which brutalist 1919.
1999) was invited to design a temporary pavilion to house smaller sculptures and plastics. 21. Frederick Kiesler (born as
architecture and sculpture emerged. Such framework for understanding exhibition design In accepting this invitation, he was following in the footsteps of another prominent Dutch Friedrich Kiesler) was most widely
makes it possible to formulate questions regarding architectural movements in a new architect, Gerrit Rietveld (1888-1964), who designed a pavilion to house small sculptures known for his Surrealist gallery at the
way. Rather than merely considering certain museums as examples or illustrations of as part of the third Sonsbeek in 1955. Art of This Century Gallery, opened
an aesthetic or a manifestation of an ideology, this new framework makes it possible to in 1942 by Peggy Guggenheim.
15. Lina Bo Bardi, Museu de Arte de
The Sonsbeek sculpture exhibitions began in 1949 as a triennial, but later adopted a The entire gallery space itself was
interrogate these very projects in order to better understand the aesthetic and ideology schedule of irregular intervals by its fifth presentation in 1966. It presented sculptures in designed by Kiesler.
São Paulo.
the open air and had as its manifest goal to bring contemporary works of sculpture closer 22. J.C. Heyligers and Hans L.C.
Jaffé, Sonsbeek’66 5e Internationale The Artwork Resembles the Exhibition Design 28. supportstructure.org (accessed
June 29, 2015).
to the public.22 Aldo van Eyck reflected on this very premise and responded thus with his
beeldententoonstelling (Arnhem:
pavilion: “Although the immediate requirements were the same this time—to accommodate Stichting Sonsbeek Arnhem, 1966). Many artists working today are questioning what constitutes a display of art. As the
those objects which because of small size, material, fragility or value could not be exhibited 23. Aldo van Eyck, Niet om het
importance of the architect in designing the exhibition space was in decline, there was a
along the lawns and lanes in the park—I thought the time had come to reconsider the whole even... wel evenwaardig: van en
over Aldo van Eyck (Amsterdam: correlative increase in the number of artists whose work investigated the idea of display.
question of contemplating sculpture out of doors, since this still presupposes fields and Van Gennep, 1986), 58. For example, the collaborative project Support Structure (2003-2009) by the British
trees and sunshine, a very obstinate misunderstanding—as though art has more to say (or 24. Penelope Curtis, Patio and artist-architect Celine Condorelli and artist-curator Gavin Wade, presents an architectural
says it more kindly) when mother nature is around (here in the guise of a Victorian park)… Pavilion: The Place of Sculpture
interface that can be adapted to the user; they state “Support Structure aims to create
in Modern Architecture (London:
for art today is singularly autonomous.” Riding house, 2008), 130. a space which is continuously reinvented by its users in relation to its context.”28 Phase
The exhibition catalogue professed some of the guiding principles for the show. For 1 of their project, presented at the Chisenhale Gallery, London in 2003 offered storage,
example, it is revealed that the working committee decided to present a limited number archival, and organizational space for artworks in the exhibition. Therefore it functioned as
of the “old masters moderns” such as Rodin, Bourdelle, and Maillol, but, to have a good an interface between the public, the artworks, and the institution via the curators.
representation of such figures as Laurens, Lipchitz, Picasso, Arp, Marini, and Moore. At times, the display itself literally becomes the work of art. In the case of Abstracta
Additionally, they made an effort to show works that had not been shown previously as (2007-2012), the Danish artist Kasper Akhoj brought together found and collected parts of
part of Sonsbeek or recently in the Netherlands. Sonsbeek ’66 presented a selection of the modular display system Abstracta, designed in the 1960s by the Danish architect Poul
267 sculptures by 145 artists from more than twenty-five different countries, and showed Cadovius, in a sculptural installation. The component parts of the installation were found
a mix of younger as well as more established artists. The exhibition presented sculptures in and collected during several journeys he undertook throughout the new states of the former
the context of the park, but no sculpture was actually designed specifically for the site nor Yugoslavia, from Macedonia and Montenegro in the south, to Kosovo, Serbia, Bosnia,
made in situ. A large portion of the works presented there are dated between 1963 and Croatia, and Slovenia in the north.
1965—a few years before the exhibition was realized. Wendelien van Oldenborgh based her work The Didactic Room (2010) on the
Sonsbeek ’66 was mounted just before the above-mentioned Information show at museum design of Lina Bo Bardi, presenting this project as part of the exhibition Museum
25. Aldo van Eyck, Sonsbeek
MoMA and the 1967 exhibition Scale As Content at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Thus, I am Pavilion. Modules (2010) at the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven. Joe Scanlan’s solo exhibition
temporally situating this outdoor exhibition right before the new wave of monumental and 26. Van Eyck, 58. Möbel considers and proposes furniture as a philosophical concept, something supportive
site-specific art, which began to determine the design of the exhibition space itself as part 27. Curtis, 140.
and structural beyond being mere objects. The work Möbel (color chart) from 2011 is
of their construction. At Sonsbeek ’66, the architect was still favored to design a pavilion to nonetheless reminiscent of a display unit; it appears to be colored shelving, perhaps a
house smaller sculptures and plastics and played an important role in providing an overall bookcase that uses the perpendicular support of the wall.
framework of display. The Aldo van Eyck pavilion housed more than 30 sculptures including American artist Heather Rowe’s Trouble Everyday (2009) presents an exhibition
the works of Arp, Brancusi, Pevsner, Ernst, Matta, Paolozzi, Constant, and Giacometti, and display system as a work of art; the installation is comprised of metal and wood supports
objects that are “small, large, thin, squat, wood, stone, metal, dark, light, heavy, wiry, solid, and mirrors that reflect the visitors and the space itself. German artist Nicole Wermers
polished, precise, rough—all within a single structure.”23 has also experimented with display shelving systems in her 2011 installation Wasserregal

Penelope Curtis, the author of Patio and Pavilion: The Place of Sculpture in Modern (watershelf), for which she showed an upside down shelf. The Georgian born artist Thea
Architecture, mentions how the sculptures placed in the Dutch architect’s structure Djordjadze often combines various display apparatuses such as plinths in her work.
“… seem like ornaments for Van Eyck’s pavilion,”24 insinuating the sculptures’ subservience Perhaps one of the most well known artists who examine the borders of art and
to the exhibition design. However, this will radically change in the following years when the exhibition design is the Austrian Heimo Zobernig. The use of display is central to his
prominence of the architect will shift in the artist’s favor, leaving artists to create their own work and he often plays with issues of exhibition architecture. For the Austrian pavilion
display without the help of the architect. at the 2015 Venice Biennial, he responded directly to the context of the exhibition site
Aldo van Eyck’s pavilion25 consists of thick partition walls made of rough concrete and integrated a black monolith from the ceiling and a black floor reconstruction into the
blocks, and a translucent roof of flexible nylon stretched over steel tubes. The architect architecture. Similarly, the English artist Liam Gillick has been working on interventions into
erected six horizontal walls which consequently formed five long corridors or partitions. exhibition structures and operates in the gray zone between art and display.
At different points along these corridors, the walls protruded or retracted in semi-circular
concave or convex openings. Every partition wall had a built in doorway, with the third The use of the cylinder and Politics of Installation
wall boasting two entrances into a larger area created by fourth and fifth walls that were
discontinuous in the middle. Van Eyck carefully considered the visitors’ sightline through Politics of Installation is a collaboration and the culmination of a dialogue between the
these passageways, so that they could have sideway and diagonal views throughout the Belgian artist Hans Demeulenaere and the Dutch Bas van den Hurk. The artists worked on
pavilion, discovering and encountering the art objects scattered throughout. On either a joint project consisting of two exhibitions—one at Loods 12, Wetteren, Belgium, followed
end of the pavilion, low-rise walls made of the same concrete blocks are placed to be by another at P/////AKT in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, both in 2015—and a publication.
used as either socles or benches for the visitors; along with circular slabs, they functioned Although they work in different mediums, they have identified a meeting point through
as platforms for display of sculptures, while some were left empty for seating. Using their common project. Demeulenaere works sculpturally at the intersection of architecture
rectangular concrete blocks to construct the cylindrical walls resulted in a labyrinth-like and design, while Van den Hurk paints, often making use of textiles in an investigation
detail of overlapping blocks. Van Eyck states, “Central to my idea was that the structure of its surface in painting and in architectural installations. Their exchange stems from a
should not reveal what happens inside until one gets quite close, approaching it from mutual interest in searching for new forms of presentation, questioning how art can be
the ends. Seen from the sides, it appears closed and massive—guarding its secrets.”26 displayed today. For Politics of Installation both artists constructed a kind of a physical
This idea is comparable to the way BBPR designed the exhibition space for a dramatic and mental support structure that functions as a work of art, but is also a framework that
presentation of Michelangelo’s Rondanini Pietà. literally supports the display of works by other artists. In their collaboration, they refer to
In 2006 the pavilion was reconstructed in the garden of the Kröller-Müller museum in past architectural uses of cylinders. As I discussed above, the use of cylindrical forms in
Otterlo, the Netherlands. Curtis points out that this is not the only pavilion that was rebuilt, exhibition design—as in BBPR’s display for Michelangelo’s Rondanini Pietà and in Aldo van
and refers to Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona pavilion and Rietveld pavilion which was also Eyck’s pavilion—marked a very important moment in exhibition history.
reconstructed in the Kröller-Müller Sculpture Garden. Regarding these reconstructions, What the cylinder as a form does is determine the viewing position of the visitor or the
Curtis inquires: “Three temporary pavilions are made permanent; three pavilions that no inhabitant of the space. In searching for possible alternative forms of exhibition design today,
longer have to ‘do’ anything. Does their change in temporal status affect their status as Demeulenaere and Van den Hurk make use of the cylinder to refer to specific architectural
‘artworks’? Have they become artworks, or were they always artworks, function or no examples. Van den Hurk focuses on the domestic architectural manifestations of the cylinder,
function?”27 specifically drawing on the work of the Belgian modernist, brutalist Juliaan Lampens.
The cylinder that Bas van den Hurk constructed in the two exhibitions spaces is based
on the cylinders in the Vandenhaute-Kiebooms house (1967) 29 by Lampens. In this house,
the concrete cylinders rise from the floor to stand at the same height as the client. Situated
behind them are the bath, the toilet, and the staircase to the cellar. Through these minimal
fixed objects the architect allows for the continual reshaping and re-imagining of the space
and varying degrees of privacy. Juliaan Lampens worked almost exclusively with concrete,
wood, and glass. For some time, the architect experimented with raw concrete in order to
develop his style of bunker-like exteriors combined with open vistas and sculptural motifs.
Lampens is known for his open spaces where the living structure can be freely organized
beneath the roof, although he always creates intimate spaces or spatial division through
minimal fixtures as described above.
Van den Hurk integrates the openness achieved in the houses designed by Lampens
in the realization of his exhibition design. The artist’s inquiry is based on the domestic
realm: “how can we relate to each other in a space,” and “how can we negotiate our
space?”30 This domestic setting is only the starting point for these questions and from
this historical framework the artist aims to further explore new ways of living together and
different models of social relations. Bas van den Hurk gestures to these possibilities by
combining Juliaan Lampens’s models that facilitate different forms of living as well as Boris 29. Juliaan Lampens, detail interior
Groys’s idea of installation art, which poses questions about the bigger social context of Vandenhaute-Kiebooms house,
art. 1967 (photo: Jan Kempenaers).
30. Author’s interview with Bas van
By comparison, Demeulenaere is more directly concerned with the display of art in den Hurk and Hans Demeulenaere,
exhibition history. For his installation, Demeulenaere places cylinders and walls at precisely July 1, 2015.
the same distance as Van Eyck did in the construction of the Sonsbeek pavilion. The
stones the artist uses are the same ones used for the Kröller-Müller version (or as close as
they could get from their scrutiny of the pictures of the original structure). Demeulenaere’s
concrete masonry similarly renders visible the tactility of the gravel.
There are some differences, however. The artist adapted Van Eyck’s structure to fit
the exhibition space: Van Eyck stacked 16 blocks while Demeulenaere used 12 blocks to
fit the interior of the exhibition space (Demeulenaere always works with the specificities of
the space where he is installing). Additionally the artist chose to build in blocks of MDF in
between the concrete blocks, helping to make the structure less massive. The result was
a more modular and lighter version of the Van Eyck cylinder. By leaving the stones unfixed,
the artist highlights the structure’s ephemerality and limited lifespan, and it implicitly
suggests that the massive cylindrical structures that Van den Hurk has built is likewise an
adaptation.

These contemporary artists’ exploration of architectural forms of display—which saw a

historic transition from being in the realm of the architect to that of the artist—reveals
that the artist’s role remains central to exhibition design to this day. In light of the shifts
charted above, there may still be many more aspects left for exploration in the history of
exhibition design. As demonstrated in this text, the artists discussed here get to the core
of installation design or are making use of display itself as a basis for their practice. What
remains to be seen is how their work continues this exploration to chart a new history of
installation.