Superlost again
Publication for Future Reference. 2010
Back image taken from Zonatta Magazine
‘The Duel Meaning of Things’ at Westspace
The Duel Meaning of Things displays everyday items such as family portraits and baseball bats whose original purpose changes due to a single event or action. Referencing sixties Italian architectural group Superstudio, ‘anti design grid,’ I reconfigure mass produced objects and images to emphasize the dual purpose they can have both positively and negatively on our lives. The use of the word “Duel” is a play on the word in reference to the murder of Lawrence King.
Above: Glenn Walls: The Duel Meaning of Things, 2009 Superstudio: The Continuous Monument 1969 – 72
Prototype for Sophisticated Living 4 (Team Australia) Curated by Veronica Tello
Team Australia. Group show at the Carlton Hotel and Studios. December 2008
Team Australia is:
jeremy drape, emily ferretti, veronica kent, annika koops, brendan lee, natalie ryan, utako shindo, jackson slattery, salote tawale, glenn walls
Curated by Veronica Tello
Prototype for Sophisticated Living 3
Prototype for Sophisticated Living 3 exhibited at RMIT gallery, December 2008
Going Home
Glenn Walls Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Farnsworth House, 1945 – 51
Untitled (Going Home) is a series of digital prints photographed in the house I grew up in. Located in Melbourne the house had been in the family for almost fifty years. However growing up in this house, I dreamt of living in another world, a modernist world. This world consisted of clean lines, white walls and minimalist furniture that had no connection to past histories or memories.
In June 2006, the house was left vacant and up for sale. Realising the house would soon be out of my family possession, I went back to document my connection to the house, its history and more importantly my memories. For a few short weeks I had the opportunity to act out my childhood fantasy of connecting my family home to a particular form of modernism I only know through books and the Internet, however at the same time allowing the house to shine in its blandness as a place of memory.
Prototype for Sophisticated Living 1 (Broke exhibition)
Prototype for Sophisticated Living 1 exhibited at the Carlton Hotel & Studios 2008 in the group show Broke
Room 2
Prototype for Sophisticated Living 1 for the exhibition Broke At the Carlton Hotel & Studios 2008
Let’s talk about it, or new utopias
By
Rebecca Coates is an independent curator and writer, Adjunct Curator at Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA), and currently undertaking a PhD at the University of Melbourne looking at site-specific, ephemeral based installations.
Blubberland: The Dangers of Happiness , a new book by Elizabeth Farrelly, coins a new term for a new form of architectural horrible-ness. For Farrelly, Western society is now a “Blubberland”, a society in which ‘most of us have more than enough of what we need and more than enough of what we want as well’. As she continues, most of the inhabitants of Blubberland have far too much and more not only of material goods but also bodily fat, ‘to a degree that is dangerous for them and for the future of the planet.’ Thus the development of the McMansion: vast sprawling architectural monstrosities with too many bedrooms, an equal number of bathrooms, four-space garages, and so many windows that those commissioning them can’t afford the curtains. And filled they are to groaning point with all the stuff and possessions a family could not possibly want, let alone need.
The disillusionment and rejection of modernist architectural ideals by the 1960s Italian group Superstudio might be akin to a similar rejection of today’s faceless, tasteless, mass-consumist architecture in what was once the green belt. Once only the domain of savvy architects and design aficionados, Superstudio’s little-known architectural vision is undergoing a cult revival as architects and artists look to articulate their dissatisfaction with popular trends and developments.
Founded in Florence by a group of radical young architects in 1966, Superstudio laid out their vision of a built environment, ‘an efficient minimalist space that provides an ordered existence .. [The space should] not [be] constructed on the whims of consumerism and fashion.’ The location of this new form of avant-garde thinking is of course not accidental: Florence, Italy: a town ‘where all such contradictions become evident … [a town which] stands historically symbolic.’ And what better vehicle to launch their manifesto than Italian Vogue: anarchy and avant-garde are nothing if not fashionable.
To read the full transcript click on the Articles icon on the right hand side.
Room 1
How to avoid Modernism
How to avoid Modernism at Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, April 2008.
In 2005 l created a scale model of Philip Johnson’s Glass House (1949). As with Farnsworth House I was attracted to Johnson’s simple lines, geometrical forms and large floor-to-ceiling windows that opened up the interior to the outside world. It was not until 2008 that the thought of using the model for the work How to avoid modernism (2008) came to fruition and was exhibited at Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces in April 2008 (slide). 
Philip Johnson, Glass House, 1949
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