A 2-day conference held at the MAK Center Schindler House, Neutra VDL House, and Hollyhock House, Los Angeles.

Panel A1
Justin Jampol, Director Wende Museum, Los Angeles
Dora Jones, Critic/Faculty at Sci-Arc, Los Angeles
Bill Ferehawk, Filmaker, Los Angeles
Sarah Lorenzen, Director Neutra VDL House / Chair at Cal Poly Pomona, Los Angeles
Patrick Mansfield, Curator Wende Museum, Los Angeles

In response to the recent “Competing Utopias” exhibition at the Neutra VDL House, Dora Jones talked with curators Justin Jampol, Bill Ferehawk, Sarah Lorenzen and Patrick Mansfield about how DDR relics from the Wende Museum destabilized the “authentic” experience of the VDL House. The curators placed the possessions of a fictional East German family throughout the VDL thereby confusing the perception of capitalist and communist, real and fictional domestic spaces.
Graham Foundation Grant.

Panel A2
Santiago Borja, Artist, Mexico City
Anthony Carfello, Artist/Curator, Los Angeles
Mimi Zeiger, Critic/Editor/Curator, Los Angeles

The artist Santiago Borja spoke with critic Mimi Zeiger and curator/artist Anthony Carfello about his many interventions into iconic modernist houses, including the Neutra VDL House, the Villa Savoye, and the Casa Luis Barragan. Employing weaving, patterning, and incongruous geometry, Borja’s installations both respond to and contradict the modernist spaces that they inhabit.

Panel B1
Julian Hoeber, Artist, Los Angeles
Kimberli Meyer, Director MAK Center / Curator, Los Angeles
Renee Petropoulos, Artist, Los Angeles
Mohammed Sharif, Architect/Critic/Faculty at UCLA

A selection of realized and unrealized projects were presented by Kimberli Meyer, Renee Petropoulos, and Julian Hoeber. The discussion was led by Mohammed Sharif exploring notions of interpretation and the boundaries of site-specific artistic projects in a landmark work of architecture.

Panel B2
Jorge Otero-Pailos, Artist/Curator/ Faculty at Columbia GSAP, New York
Bryony Roberts, Artist/ Architect/Faculty at Sci-Arc

Discussing the emergence of experimental preservation and its implication for house museums, the artist, architect and historian Jorge Otero-Pailos talked with artist/architect Bryony Roberts about her installation at the Neutra VDL House titled “Inverting Neutra.” Otero-Pailos and Roberts discussed how the intersection of conceptual art and historic landmarks can expand the fields of both architecture and preservation.

Panel B3
Mark Allen, Machine Project, Los Angeles
Ted Bosley, Director Gamble House, Pasadena
Johanna Blakley, Deputy Director of the Norman Lear Center, Los Angeles

Addressing the role of social practice in animating house museums, the artist and director of Machine Project Mark Allen talked about his transformation of the Gamble House with director/curator Ted Bosley and critic Johanna Blakley. Machine Project’s multiple installations and performances at the Gamble House took place concurrently with the conference, activating the landmark site with playful irreverence.

Panel D1
Francois Perrin, Architect/Curator, Los Angeles
Xavier Veilhan, Artist, Paris

The lauded artist Xavier Veilhan presented his installations at notable landmarks such as the Neutra VDL House, Case Study 21 House, Lautner’s Sheats Goldstein House, the Melikov House, and Versailles. Curator Francois Perrin and Veilhan discussed their project Architectones, a series of site-specific interventions at Modernist landmarks across the globe, and the emergence of a biographical response to these spaces.

Keynote
Jorge Otero-Pailos, Artist/Curator/ Faculty at Columbia GSAP, New York
Jorge Otero-Pailos has spearheaded the discourse and practice of experimental preservation through his subversive installations in landmark architecture, his founding of the journal Future Anterior, and his professorship at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation. In his fluid integration of art practice, architecture, preservation, and scholarship, Otero-Pailos models an alternative form of practice that fosters creativity in historic preservation.