Olga Treivas on how to merge white cube exhibition design with heat-shrink wrap and sustainability.
ALEXANDRA RUDYK, Dialogue Of Arts editor-in-chief: Olga, can you give us a short tour into the development of exhibition architecture?
OLGA TREIVAS: For a long time, the museum was perceived as a cabinet of curiosities in the privately owned space. Museums of the 18th and 19th centuries located in enfilades were also designed according to this typology. Nevertheless, with the rapid acceleration of life, art demanded a new type of architecture and lightweight structures that could be quickly reconfigured to accommodate the needs of each exhibition. Large-scale events such as World’s Fair have also influenced the development of temporary pavilion typologies: these events demanded large exhibition spaces and architecture had to come up with a response. Since Joseph Paxton’s Crystal Palace (1850-1851) in London and the Grand Palais (1897) in Paris, fair architecture has essentially developed the same motif of an elegant shed, easily adaptable to various events.
These global changes have particularly affected exhibition design. The “white cube” concept pioneered by the Bauhaus and New York’s MoMA in the 1930s became a standard: it is still considered to be a benchmark by museum professionals and gallerists worldwide. Along with this “white on white” genre, the last twenty years have seen a marked shift towards design-driven exhibitions featuring vibrant architecture. I believe this stems from museums’ focus on entertaining visitors, as the garish backdrops can easily make a visitor forget the primary purpose of a visit — the art itself. At one point, our bureau even published an article, “Manifesto of White Walls” (Dialogue Of Arts No. 2-2018), which included a provocative call for museums to abandon the use of architects when designing temporary exhibitions.
RUDYK: How have you formulated an architecture assignment of this fair?
TREIVAS: As architects, we retreat as much as possible into the background and let the art shine. For large exhibitions and fairs, we introduce the mutual method for all exhibits, which helps to balance pieces of varying techniques and scales. Although large art shows in this regard remind me of a noisy house party, where everyone is talking all at once, although you can meet new and interesting people. It was important for us to convey the event’s high status while using recycled building materials, adding a sense of glitch to the architecture, and helping the large flow of visitors experience the art. Our main aim was to give the exhibits a leading role and allow them to shine. Blazar fair is situated on three floors: the first floor houses the digital zone, the second is entirely dedicated to product design, and the third to art.
Nevertheless, the flow of visitors during fairs is typically very dense, and the space of the 19th century warehouse that hosted the exhibition is strictly limited by colonnades. It was important to us to avoid visual overload, so we chose a classic fair design with exhibition sections located along a central row of columns and outer walls.
RUDYK: How can one recognize your architecture? By what signs can one say, “Oh, this is the Treivas bureau?”
TREIVAS: Breaking the rhythm and scale is the favourite technique in our “menu.” In the design of the Blazar fair, these solutions were expressed in the irregularity of the exhibition structures and booth partitions, reminiscent of giant office folders with neon Post-It notes. We also love populating our projects with subtle Easter egg details — for example, some labels are attached with a simple safety pin. It’s subtle and fun.
RUDYK: As a young art fair, Blazar adheres to simple, even deliberately low-costing, solutions: pallets, unpainted plywood. Could this be considered the fair’s signature style? Which Blazar “markers” have you transferred to architecture?
TREIVAS: At this exhibition, we have used construction materials left from the previous fair. Sustainability is a hallmark of Blazar, a kind of code for the fair, so we worked in accordance with these principles. Incidentally, this is not foreign to our projects: we always advocate for the recycling of existing materials. However, we added fabric to the booth partitions in the design section: this will not only soften the industrial interior of the venue but also help to hide from viewers the visual noise that inevitably arises during the dynamic life of the fair.
We also used heat-shrink wrap in the design section and the independent artists’ section. I’ve done several projects with regular film — for example, at the exhibition “Detective” at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art in 2014 transparent plastic curtain created a sense of danger and the atmosphere of a forensic office. Shrink wrap has a different context. Its use alludes to the appearance of the packaging in which art is stored, while the galleries are housed in separate folders.
What’s hidden beneath those kilometers of bubble wrap is yet to be seen, both by Blazar visitors and by the artists themselves who are constantly developing their creative direction. By the way, after the fair the materials are returned to the warehouse and the wrap is sent to a recycling center, which even helps to offset some of the costs.
RUDYK: Could you please elaborate on the sustainability and architecture’s integration in art & design?
TREIVAS: In our practice, all these concepts have already merged. We often look to architecture for design inspiration — and vice versa. Some motifs, such as the integration of embroidery into objects, have evolved over several years. From “Emma” furniture and lamp series, they have migrated to exhibition projects, to the interior of the Boreal restaurant in Helsinki, and even to architecture. We believe this approach is yielding results — our portfolio is increasingly growing, with projects we’ve worked on from concept to book arrangement and decor, consistently maintaining and developing our chosen techniques.
RUDYK: How can we avoid suppressing art without losing the effect of a “big event”?
TREIVAS: It is the content that makes the event ‘big’, not its shape. We leave wow-factor and bold self-expression to the artists.
RUDYK: Do you feel that architects now co-curate the spatial experience of the exhibition?
TREIVAS: I think it have always been like that, although now this sensation is more prominent. We ourselves work extensively on exhibitions, both as designers and curators, and we’ve partially transferred this experience to the architecture of our projects. It’s important to us to orchestrate what visitors see every minute of their visit to our spaces — we provide them with a sensory and emotional experience of interacting with the architecture.
RUDYK: Can you outline the direction in which fair architecture is moving, in your opinion?
TREIVAS: Fair architecture strives for the utmost clarity and simplicity of solutions. But paradoxically it is precisely this simplicity that opens up space for the complexity of formats. Curated segments and lifestyle panels are added to the usual stands, and sometimes the fair itself becomes an exhibition, where the gallery presence dissolves to the point of invisibility. This is how the TAAD Fair in Tel Aviv and the new Art Basel Qatar are structured. I believe we are on the threshold of a radical fusion of formats and a blurring of the rhythm of the traditional “ordinary” show.