Toward a Concrete Utopia

Toward a Concrete Utopia: Architecture in Yugoslavia 1948-1980, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 11th October 2018

Another exhibition that combines a variety of modes (text, drawings, diagrams, maps, films, photography) to explore complex issues (ideology, the built environment, equity, quality of life, and the aspirations of non-aligned nations). My own work is not, of course, at anywhere near this scale, but will combine photography with maps, diagrams and text, and possibly sound and video. This exhibition has an number of organisational strands running through it, relating to time, sector (for instance, health, government and education) and location. These are drawn together under the theme of exploration of the aspiration to find a socialist and anti-colonial ‘third way’ in the development of a nation, that aligns with neither east (soviet communism) nor west (capitalism). The exhibition includes a number of large photographs (commissioned for the exhibition) by Valentin Jeck.

Valentin Jeck, 2016, Revolution Square, Ljubljana
Valentin Jeck, 2016, Genex Tower, Belgrade

These images give a sense of the scale of the brutalist architecture and of aspirations, both as a nation and as the source of a particular form of modernism. As well as drawing inspiration from the form of the exhibition, I would like to experiment with photographing brutalist (and other modernist) architecture in London, including examples in areas in the throes of regeneration. Would have been good to have had more time in Moscow to have done some architectural photography  (images from around the International Investment Bank below from Week 5 challenge).