Traditionally rigid, machine-like, and unresponsive to human and environmental need, the grid has been superimposed on landscapes across the country to maximize efficiency and facilitate movement. In the paintings of Agnes Martin, we found a different type of grid—imperfect, soft and undeniably human. For us, these paintings asked urgent spatial questions, promising to transform the way we organize buildings, cities, and larger systems. We reimagine Martin's grids in architectural space and construct them in dialogue with their immediate context. The pre-existing dimensions of our site organize the dimensions of our installation. Warm orange and yellows hues of the corridor's interior guide our choice of color, and the periodic winds that permeate the channel dictate our material choice, a soft, untethered fabric. In this way, our installation derives its dynamism, energy, and character from the unique conditions that penetrate our site. We have created a new grid that is responsive, dynamic, and sensitive to its surroundings, that is generated not imposed, and that amplifies the spatial imperfections, idiosyncrasies, and irregularities that remind us of our humanity.
PROCESS.
We began our process by looking at Agnes Martin's The Egg (1963), asking ourselves how we could translate the painting into three-dimensional space. Although we quickly abandoned the egg as shape or motif, the tension between rectilinear elements and organic form in the painting would remain central to our thinking throughout the project. After settling on a suspended grid as our organizing form, we evolved the design to include central hanging elements of varying lengths to create arches; in doing so, the grid would be evoked in both plan and section. We then tested eight fabric samples to optimize transparency and tactility. We also experimented with subtle fabric dying, settling on faint, barely susceptible hues which would intensify when layered in space.
The ethereal, fluid nature of the fabrics in combination with the softened nature of light and color within the space create an experience where the human body can be used as an instrument of navigation and manipulation of the grid, a space where rigid order becomes an opportunity for exploration.
The ethereal, fluid nature of the fabrics in combination with the softened nature of light and color within the space create an experience where the human body can be used as an instrument of navigation and manipulation of the grid, a space where rigid order becomes an opportunity for exploration.
THE GRID IN WIND.