BUILT IN, A NEW GROUP SHOW AND DIALOGUE AT NEUTRA’S VDL HOUSE

Continuing a trend across the Americas of interventions at iconic off-site residential homes—Built In at Neutra VDL House II includes 32 site specific works by Los Angeles based artists, designers, architects and creative practitioners. Curated by artist and writer Erik Benjamins and Marta gallery, the collaboration was sparked by the rich legacy of the site and the desire to further explore domestic spaces, objects and rhythms. 

Known as the “radical glass house” Neutra VDL House was built by Viennese-American architect Richard Neutra in 1932 then rebuilt and expanded into its present iteration in 1965 after a disastrous fire. Themed around the architectural style of built-ins—unmoving objects opposite of freestanding furniture—participating artists like Papi Boy Baby Boy, Fiona Connor, Nancy Kwon, LA Door Kiyoko Oshiro, Three Sheep and Bob Dornberger were invited to dialogue with this concept.

“Flipped Flipper Numbers” is a statement on gentrification. The intentional and playful diversion away from ‘Neutra’ typeface which artist duo Papi Boy Baby Boy says is a visible marker that a neighborhood has been taken over by flippers displacing the original residents. Their approach seeks to “propose a humane alternative to the antiseptic utopianism of Neutra’s typeface co-opted by corporations and house flippers indifferent to existing communities and their needs.” “Heron” is an ode to the use of everyday materials at VDL House, which Interior Design Studio, Three Sheep says was uncommon in domestic architecture at the time. In collaboration with Bob Dornberger who developed an alternative fiberglass made from salvaged agave fibers, that and the horsehair offer the table lamp a semi-transparent materiality combined with its more industrial parts including mixed wood, brass and copper. “Mountains, Water” by Nancy Kwon is an unglazed ceramic offering table inspired by true-view landscape painting and the Goguryeo tomb paintings in North Korea. This work references the practice of landscape painting as to create a vista for internal healing and transformation. Writings that emerged in Kwon’s research reference that the tomb holder was recorded to have said that once old and unable to wander the mountains, he would like to “paint the walls of his room and lie in bed roaming around the mountains of his imagination”. 

Built In is on exhibition at Neutra VDL House through November 7, 2021.