TROPOLISM

Deitch Projects has two shows which are bringing the city inside. Swoon and Barry McGee both have large installations in the two SoHo locations.

What makes projects like this of interest to architects, particularly architects like myself who work with artists, and who design the spaces artists will work in, is how they bring the street indoors.

The Swoon work is fresh and gorgeous, but I want to see her rip open the walls, not take the white box as an outer limit. I want to see her rummaging occur now, not as something wallpapered or brought into the space. This is a ridiculous observation, though. Her work is concerned with flattening the motion of the street, not about re-creating it. She does not want to be Matta-Clark. And in the name of our life and safety (which is why I have a license, because I think about these things), we are probably better off for it.

Barry McGee's work has always played with elements of abstraction and absurd comic-book illos. The work in this show is exploring that language even further, without giving too much ground to the gallery/museum setting.

Both installations take advantage of the gallery to freeze our street impressions, allowing us to observe and enjoy moments of movement, color, attraction, and madness.

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