One Thousand Doors, No Exit, an exhibition by Nicolas Grospierre on view at the Graham Foundation from Thursday, March 3 through Saturday, April 2, 2011

3.1.11 | Chicago, IL | The two subjects by Warsaw-based artist Nicolas Grospierre in the new exhibition, One Thousand Doors, No Exit, at the Graham Foundation from March 3 through April 2, could not be less similar: a 14th century Venetian palazzo and an abandoned Soviet-era spa treatment complex in Lithuania. Taken together, however, TATTARRATTAT (2010) and Hydroklinika (2004) show Grospierre’s persistent interest in the tension between perception and truth in architecture, as well as architecture's capacity to stand as an artifact of ideology.

Tracing a path of reflections through a series of convex mirrors, the two-channel projection TATTARRATTAT guides viewers on two simultaneous tours of a 14th century Venetian palazzo’s winding interior. While each tour is different, both begin and end in the courtyard, and what at first appears to be a video shot in real time begins to reveal itself as an animation composed of over 500 individual photographs. TATTARRATTAT was originally commissioned by the Signum Foundation, and curated by Grzegorz Musiał, the Foundation's director, as one of the first in a series of site specific projects intended to engage the unique history of the Palazzo Donà, Signum’s headquarters in Venice. The project’s title, TATTARRATTAT, comes from the longest palindrome in the dictionary, a term for a knock on a door coined by James Joyce in Ulysses (1922).

Hydroklinika is a series of 32 photographs of a treatment complex built between 1976 and 1981 in Druskinkai, Lithuania, once one of the Soviet Union's most popular spa towns. The spa could accommodate up to 500 patients at one time in the complex, which boasted 50 healing rooms, 80 thermal baths, 40 mud baths, and an underground pool. Grospierre photographed the facility in 2004 a year before it was demolished. He recalls that the eerie emptiness of the abruptly abandoned building reminded him of a modern Pompei, and “the frozen state of the architecture from this perspective is very telling about the Marxist project. Incredible, Utopian, buoyant, but not practical, and not economically viable." Architecture that stood vacant as a relic of a communist country and system that no longer exists. The complex was designed by little-known architects Romaldas and Ausra Silinskan on a ternary plan, which means that each element is repeated by a multiple of three. And since Grospierre photographed uniformly in what he characterizes as “global, objective, and systematic” all parts of the buildings, both interior and exterior, many of the photographs appear to be the same when in reality he photographed three different elements.

The Graham’s exhibition One Thousand Doors, No Exit is the first presentation of TATTARRATTAT and Hydroklinika in the United States. The Graham Foundation’s presentation of TATTARRATTAT is made possible in part by the Signum Foundation.

About the Artist

Nicolas Grospierre (born 1975, Geneva, Switzerland) lives and works in Warsaw, Poland. He studied sociology at the London School of Economics and political science at the Institut d'Etudes Politique de Paris. In 2008, Grospierre and Kobas Laksa were awarded the Golden Lion for Best National Participant at the 11th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice for the Polish Pavilion project, Hotel Polonia. The Afterlife of Buildings. He works predominantly in an expanded field of photography, exploring the social organization of space. Grospierre’s work has been shown internationally in exhibitions in Berlin, Brasilia, Madrid, New York, Venice, Warsaw, among other cities. For more information on Grospierre, visit http://www.grospierre.art.pl/.

Related Events

Artist Talk

March 3, 2011, 6–7PM
“Lost in Architecture”
Nicolas Grospierre

Space is limited. Reservations are required.

Go to the Graham Foundation web site for more information and to RSVP.

Opening Reception

March 3 2011, 6:30–8PM

Tours

The Graham Foundation will offer public tours of One Thousand Doors, No Exit every Saturday at 2PM beginning March 5, 2011.  Saturday tours do not require reservations and are free and open to the public. Tours will begin in the foyer on the first floor.

Group tours are available throughout the week. Please email [email protected] to make arrangements.

About the Graham Foundation

Founded in 1956, the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts makes project-based grants to individuals and organizations and produces public programs to foster the development and exchange of diverse and challenging ideas about architecture and its role in the arts, culture, and society. The Graham Foundation was created by a bequest from Ernest R. Graham (1866–1936), a prominent Chicago architect who was a protégé of Daniel Burnham.

Since 1963, the Graham Foundation has been located in the Madlener House, a 9,000-square foot turn of the century Prairie-style mansion by architect Richard E. Schmidt and designer Hugh M. G. Garden, located in the historic Gold Coast neighborhood of Chicago.

Exhibition Location & Hours

Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts
Madlener House
4 West Burton Place
Chicago, IL 60610
www.grahamfoundation.org

Gallery Hours: Wednesday to Saturday, 11AM to 5PM; every third Thursday of the month, 11AM–8PM.