Atelier Bow-Wow Small Case Study BBQ

January 31–March 29, 2009 This exhibition is made possible by a generous grant from the Graham for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts. Additional support provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Nimoy Foundation, Japan Foundation and The George and MaryLou Boone Fund for Artistic Advancement. Free gallery admission underwritten by generous support from Ovation TV. The Standard is the official hotel of REDCAT. hammock

Sunset

631 West 2nd Street, Los Angeles, California 90012 USA Visit www.redcat.org or call +1 213 237 2800 for more information Gallery Hours: noon-6pm or intermission, closed Mondays Always free Small Case Study House During their residency in Los Angeles, Atelier Bow-Wow visited ten Case Study with a class of architec- ture students from UCLA. They were as interested in the transformations of the houses over the years as the original designs. The architects and students listened to the owners talk about what it is like to live in these modernist icons and how they have altered and customized their . Many houses had undergone expan- sion in order to fit contemporary lifestyles into a container designed for post-World War II living. In their research, they were struck by this desire for more space. The architects jokingly confess that the bigness of American houses frightens Japanese people unconsciously. They wondered if larger homes encouraged consumer behavior or if consumer behavior encouraged larger homes. Smallness became a provocation to question this tendency and, in the process, shift our thinking and behavior. Bow-Wow’s proposal for REDCAT focuses on small scale and small case (a specific activity). It is a parallel application of the framework of the Japanese teahouse, which was designed for a single activity in a very modest scale. The tea ceremony hammock House is dedicated to gravity. It is a house without a . is not necessary but is essential to Two hammocks hang from a naked truss and require two persons of roughly a certain way of living. During their equal weight to sleep together on opposite ends. Individual dreams are realized with residency, Atelier Bow-Wow identified cooperation of others, in balance together. elements or activities they felt were important to Southern California living and designed three conceptual houses: hammock house, BBQ house and sunset house. All three construc- tions are made with reclaimed timber, making these structures part of a cycle in which material and site are in flux.

Atelier Bow- Wow was established by Yoshiharu Tsukamoto and Momoyo Kaijima in 1992. Tsukamoto (b.1965, Kanagawa) graduated from the Tokyo Institute of Technology where he is currently an associate professor and has also taught at Harvard Graduate School of Design and UCLA. Kaijima (b.1969, Tokyo) graduated from Japan Women’s University. She is currently assistant professor at University of Tsukuba and has taught at ETH in Zurich and Harvard Graduate School of Design. In addition to numerous projects, Atelier Bow-Wow has participated in the 2008 Liverpool Biennial, 2008 Venice Biennale, 2007 Sâo Paulo Bienal, 2006 Busan Biennale, Echigo Tsumaari Art Triennale in 2003, 50th Venice Biennale (2003) and the 2002 Gwangju and Shanghai Biennales. Their work has also been included in group exhibitions at The Hayward Gallery, Walker Art Center, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo City Opera Sunset House is dedicated to a phenomenon produced by two spherical, Gallery, and the New National celestial bodies: the sun and the earth. It takes a spherical form with a concave Museum in Berlin. BBQ House is dedicated to energy. The house takes the shape of a stadium interior that catches the human body with horizontal rays, densifying orange beams to concentrate thermal energy from open fires and human beings. It is an and the warmth of sunsets. enlargement of the container of the BBQ grill into a small-scaled stadium that swallows the behavior of people while they cook and eat together.

Tilt of the earth 23.4°