Review: Environments and Counter Environments. “Italy: The New Domestic Landscape,” MoMA, 1972

Abstract

Environments and Counter Environments. “Italy: The New Domestic Landscape,” MoMA, 1972 Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, Chicago 18 September 2013–14 December 2013 > The object is no longer conceived as an isolated entity … but rather as an integral part of the larger natural and sociocultural environment.1 In May 1972, Gordon Matta-Clark installed an industrial container between two galleries in New York’s SoHo district. In it, he created an interior divided into three spaces and consisting of scavenged wood and discarded doors. An accompanying Super 8 mm film documented the happening: Matta-Clark and several other artists and visitors occupied the labyrinth of small rooms, which served as a multipurpose staging ground for unscripted activities and performances. Meanwhile on Fifty-Third Street, the Museum of Modern Art staged an exhibition curated by Emilio Ambasz titled Italy: The New Domestic Landscape . Nearly 200 manufactured objects such as chairs, tables, and light fixtures (categorized as “conformist,” “reformist,” or “contestatory”) were placed outdoors in the sculpture garden, while twelve commissioned “environments” were situated in the galleries.2 As a curator in the museum’s Department of Architecture and Design, Ambasz was undoubtedly aware of Matta-Clark’s work, as he was of the trend among some American schools of architecture toward reframing the discipline within the expanded field of “environmental design.” As such, the simultaneity of these two events was not accidental, but rather indicative of the shifting fields of …