Being

BEING is an exhibition that looks into Storefront’s 30 years of history of amplifying, questioning, unveiling, connecting, disrupting, merging, reacting and experimenting in relation to individuals, ideas and spaces from its past, present and future.

The exhibition includes works previously on display at Storefront by a varied range of artists and architects in specific moments in their trajectory. Artists include Vito Acconci, Daniel Arsham, Raoul Bunschoten, Beatriz Colomina, Peter Cook, Neil Denari, Liz Diller & Ricardo Scofidio, Dan Graham, Steven Holl, Jenny Holzer, Bjarke Ingels, Alfredo Jaar, Camilo José Vergara, Tadashi Kawamata, Laura Kurgan, LTL, Michael Manfredi, Enric Miralles & Carme Pinós, Antoni Muntadas, Shirin Neshat, Kyong Park, Dagmar Richter, Kiki Smith, Michael Sorkin, Charles Waldheim, Michael Webb, Krzysztof Wodiczko, and Lebbeus Woods, among many others.

Curated by Eva Franch i Gilabert and Carlos Mínguez Carrasco

Designed by Bittertang

Graphic Design by This is our Work

Curatorial Fellows: Jessica Ngan and Matt Shaw

Curatorial Support: Jordan Anderson, Isabelle Claire Kirkham-Lewitt

Storefront TV Co-producer: E.S.P. TV

TV Broadcasts: Tuesday evenings at 10 PM on TW channel 67

Conference: October 12, 2013 11-7pm

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BEING is a collection of actions. BEING is a transversal examination of Storefront’s 30 years of history to better understand the role and transformation of alternative practices in the construction of culture and public life.

While looking into archival material, institutional archaeology, and contemporary events, the exhibition presents, acts and projects forms of “being” Storefront for Art and Architecture by providing a set of historical and experiential acts around 9 action verbs: Question, Dream, Unveil, Connect, Disrupt, Amplify, React and Experiment.

Each one of these actions are presented as a series of installations that allow the visitor to understand in more depth the mechanisms, methodologies and aspirations of an institution dedicated to the production of radical and alternative practices, while inviting and enabling the visitor to act.

As if entering into a living organism, each constantly changing environment, constructed as an experiment in and of itself, informs, arms, and provokes the viewer while indirectly revealing the ways in which the organization functions and its social and cultural positions. After engaging each environment, the visitor leaves with a series of real-time experiences that carry simultaneously Storefront’s history of making.

From a waterbed of unfulfilled dreams containing unsuccessful grant applications, unrealized exhibition proposals or frustrated conversations and encounters, to a compilation of instructions towards disruption, to a TV Broadcast studio station installed in Storefront’s basement for the unveiling of relevant contemporary issues, the exhibition aims to bring together all the individuals invested in the discussion and production of alternative work to propose new ways of action.

BEING launches Storefront’s Critical History Project, a conference, an exhibition, a film, and a book that work together to understand the role of Storefront for Art and Architecture in the construction of architectural discourse within the last thirty years. Presented on the occasion of the organization's thirtieth anniversary, the project aims to reevaluate the past, scope, impact, and residue of the most relevant projects undertaken by the institution and position them in contemporary culture to assess the present and future role of alternative positions within the field of architecture.

Thanks to the support of previous directors Kyong Park, Shirin Neshat, Sarah Herda and Joseph Grima.