Stephen Prina: As He Remembered It

American artist Stephen Prina, known for his post-conceptual pieces recently opened an exhibit in Los Angeles as part of the Getty's Pacific Standard Time Presents: Modern Architecture in LA programming series. "As He Remembered It," currently on view at LACMA through August 4 highlights the work of the Viennese architect Rudolph M. Schindler, whose most important works were built in Los Angeles during the early to mid-twentieth century. The installation recontextualizes pieces of furniture from two Schindler homes in Los Angeles built during the early 1940s that have since been demolished. The individual piece of furniture (28 in total) were oftentimes custom cabinetry and built-in casework   designed by the architect himself and part of his overall design for a house, creating a seamless environment between architecture and interior design as well as flow among exterior and interior spaces. Individual pieces were constructed using surviving plans and photographs of the selected residences and interior layouts which were then translated into digital drawings and later modeled into three-dimensional objects. Inspired by the artist’s encounter in the 1980's on La Brea Avenue with a Schindler built-in desk painted bright pink, the exhibit highlights the removal of these 28 objects from their original context yet reconstructs various iterations of these pieces of furniture through the artist’s interpretation of the space of the gallery as well as the objects themselves. 

Images: Stephen Prina, As He Remembered It, installation view, Secession Vienna, 2011. © Stephan Prina, courtesy Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne and Friedrich Petzel Gallery, New York. Photo © Wolfgang Thaler, Vienna, Austria.