Atelier Bow-Wow

Atelier Bow-Wow
Small Case Study House
January 31 – March 29, 2009

Opening reception: Friday, January 30, 6-9pm

Artist talk: 6:30pm
(Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater)
631 West 2nd Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012 USA

www.redcat.org

Atelier Bow-Wow (Yoshiharu Tsukamoto and Momoyo Kaijima) explores the use and function of space within urban environments. As working architects in Tokyo, Bow-Wow developed the term “pet architecture”—a style of small, ad hoc, multi-functional structures that make the most of limited space, a phenomenon in densely developed cities like Tokyo that integrate need, improvisation and ingenuity. For over 10 years they have also created “micro public spaces,” using the framework of art galleries and museum spaces to experiment with structure, movement and function.

Bow-Wow’s newly commissioned project for REDCAT titled Small Case Study House is the culmination of an extended residency period in Los Angeles researching the Case Study House program and using this post-war project initiated by John Entenza and the Arts & Architecture magazine as a point of departure in thinking about domestic dwellings. Now infamous, the Case Study House program was a fertile period of experimentation in Southern California that enlisted architects to design (and build) low cost housing using pre-fabricated materials from the war industry. Informed by the principles of the program as well as the rich urban fabric of Los Angeles, Bow-Wow’s installation will respond to contemporary forms of the house as it relates to economic and ecological conditions, ideas of customization and what Bow-Wow calls “architectural behaviorology.”

Small Case Study House consists of three microstructures—BBQ coliseum, sunset house and hammock house—as models whose form is dictated by specificity of use, environmental context and human engagement. All structures are built with salvaged wood from deconstructed homes in the Los Angeles area supplied by the non-profit organization ReUse People. In a rampant consumer-based contemporary society, Bow-Wow’s project quietly calls into question an ecological problem of excess and waste while reactivating architecture to the rudimentary functions of shelter, sustenance and play. This is Bow-Wow’s first solo exhibition in the U.S.

Atelier Bow-Wow was established by Yoshiharu Tsukamoto and Momoyo Kaijima in 1992. Tsukamoto (b.1965, Kanagawa, Japan) and Kaijima (b.1969, Tokyo) have participated most recently in the 2008 Liverpool Biennial, Psycho Buildings at The Hayward Gallery in London and the 2008 Venice Architecture Biennale.

This exhibition is made possible by a generous grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts. Additional support provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The Nimoy Foundation and the Japan Foundation. Free gallery admission underwritten by generous support from Ovation TV. The Standard is the official hotel of REDCAT.

Admission to the gallery is always free
Gallery hours: noon-6 pm or intermission, closed Mondays
Visit www.redcat.org or call +1.213.237.2800 for more information

REDCAT
631 West 2nd Street
Los Angeles, CA 90012 USA