FRANK GEHRY RETROSPECTIVE EXHIBITION / LACMA, LA

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) presents the United States premiere of Frank Gehry, a major retrospective examining the prolific body of work of one of the world’s most celebrated and innovative architects. Canadian-born, Los Angeles–based architect Frank O. Gehry has revolutionized architecture’s aesthetics, social and cultural roles, and its relationship to the city. His understanding of a city’s heterogeneous and fluid nature has distinguished him as a revolutionary urbanist. Gehry’s works—from his residence in Santa Monica (1977–78) to Walt Disney Concert Hall (1989–2003) in downtown Los Angeles and Fondation Louis Vuitton (2005–14) in Paris—question a building’s means of expression, a process that has originated new methods of design and technology as well as an innovative approach to architectural materials.

 

Tracing the arc of Gehry`s career from the early 1960s to the present, the exhibition focuses on two overarching themes: urbanism and the development of digital design and fabrication, specifically his use of CATIA Digital Project, a software tool that Gehry developed, which allows the digital manipulation of three-dimensional information. Organized by the Centre Pompidou, Musee National d’Art Moderne, Paris, Frank Gehry examines a total of over 60 projects through more than 200 drawings, many of which will be on view for the first time, as well as 66 models that illuminate the evolution of his architectural process.

 

In addition, the LACMA presentation will include new models not previously seen in the Centre Pompidou`s exhibition, representing buildings currently being designed or in the process of construction. These projects include Facebook’s new campus, the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s renovation, and Gehry’s most recent residential designs—both private residences and large-scale developments.

 

“Frank Gehry is one of Los Angeles’s cultural icons, whose influence on international architecture and urbanism cannot be understated,” said Michael Govan, LACMA CEO and Wallis Annenberg Director. “It is a great pleasure to bring this retrospective to Frank’s hometown and present it to a Los Angeles audience.”

 

Frederic Migayrou, deputy director of the Centre Pompidou and exhibition curator, commented, “Gehry’s work has been based on the interrogation of architecture’s means of expression, a process that has brought with it new methods of design and a new approach to materials. No other exhibition has ever assembled so many projects to offer a reading of this highly distinctive architectural language.”

 

Frank Gehry is originally curated by Frederic Migayrou and Aurelien Lemonier in Paris and curated in Los Angeles by Stephanie Barron, Senior Curator and Department Head of Modern Art, with Lauren Bergman, Assistant Curator of Modern Art. The exhibition is designed by Gehry Partners, LLP. Since 1965, Gehry Partners, LLP, has designed 11 LACMA exhibitions, including Art Treasures from Japan (1965); Billy Al Bengston (1968); The Avant-Garde in Russia, 1910–1930: New Perspectives (1980); Seventeen Artists in the Sixties (1981); German Expressionist Sculpture (1983); “Degenerate Art”: The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany (1991); Exiles + Emigres: The Flight of European Artists from Hitler (1997); Ken Price Sculpture: A Retrospective (2012); and Calder and Abstraction: From Avant-Garde to Iconic (2013).

 

The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated scholarly catalogue edited by Aurelien Lemonier and Frederic Migayrou and published by Prestel. Stephanie Barron, with whom Gehry has designed six exhibitions, adds, “Constantly redefining the boundaries of contemporary architecture, Frank Gehry has transformed the domestic and international architectural landscape and represents the apex of contemporary architecture.“

 

By presenting sketches and models of built and unbuilt projects, together with documentation of completed buildings, this retrospective reveals the evolution of Gehry’s thinking as well as the processes of one of the great architectural minds of our time.”