Cruising Pavilion was an art and architecture exhibition that explored the places and practices of casual sex. It was an unofficial offering of the 16th Venice Biennale of Architecture and ran from 24 May to 1 July, 2018. Between 22 February and 7 April 2019, the second edition opened at Ludlow 38 in New York City. [1] In late 2019, the final chapter of the project opened at ArkDes, the Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design, in Stockholm and ran from 20 September to 10 November, 2019. [2]
The exhibit in Venice sought to depict places where gay men historically looked for casual sex and hookups, including "non-conventional venues such as parking lots, parks, bathroom stalls, and dark rooms." [3] The design of the exhibition included glory holes, a semblance of dark rooms, and aspects seeking to demonstrate aspects of hooking-up including narrow stairs and multiple levels. [4] The show presented ways LGBT people "have shaped space and the ways in which architecture has therefore in turn shaped space for them." [5] Cruising as a practice and the spaces in which it happens were explored and made safe in the exhibition, all while challenging the heteronormativity commonly expressed in the Venice Biennale of Architecture itself. This is especially dramatic given the implications of online and dating apps such as Grindr. [6]
The exhibition in New York explored the different directions by which cruising practices have evolved. The exhibition in Stockholm, which took place in a national gallery, explored the intersection of cruising and architectural environments. According to critic Michael Bullock, "in a little less than two years, [Cruising Pavilion] has gone from a renegade operation to an institutionalized project shown in a national museum, though ironically it found its most distinguished venue in a city of 2.4 million people with only one official gay bar." [7]
The Venice Biennale is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy, by the Biennale Foundation. It focuses on contemporary art, and includes events for art, contemporary dance, architecture, cinema, and theatre. Two main components of the festival are known as the Art Biennale and the Architecture Biennale, which are held in alternating years. The others – Biennale Musica, Biennale Teatro, Venice Film Festival, and Venice Dance Biennale – are held annually. The main exhibition held in Castello alternates between art and architecture, and there are around 30 permanent pavilions built by different countries.
Cruising for sex or cruising is walking or driving about a locality, called a cruising ground, in search of a sex partner, usually of the anonymous, casual, one-time variety. The term is also used when technology is used to find casual sex, such as using an Internet site or a telephone service.
The Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) is an international architectural firm with offices in Rotterdam, New York, Hong Kong, Doha, and Australia. The firm is currently led by eight partners - Rem Koolhaas, Reinier de Graaf, Ellen van Loon, Shohei Shigematsu, Iyad Alsaka, Chris van Duijn, Jason Long, and managing partner and architect David Gianotten.
Diller Scofidio + Renfro is an American interdisciplinary design studio that integrates architecture, the visual arts, and the performing arts. Based in New York City, Diller Scofidio + Renfro is led by four partners – Elizabeth Diller, Ricardo Scofidio, Charles Renfro, and Benjamin Gilmartin – who work with a staff of architects, artists, designers, and researchers.
Venice Biennale of Architecture is an international exhibition of architecture from nations around the world, held in Venice, Italy, every other year. It was held on even years until 2018, but 2020 was postponed to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, shifting the calendar to uneven years. It is the architecture section under the overall Venice Biennale and was officially established in 1980, even though architecture had been a part of the Venice Art Biennale since 1968.
Madelon Vriesendorp is a Dutch artist, painter, sculptor and art collector. She was married to Rem Koolhaas and best known as one of the co-founders of the Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) in the early 1970s. Vriesendorp would often create visuals and graphics for OMA in the early years.
Basak Senova is an art curator, writer and designer from Istanbul, Turkey. She lives and works in Vienna since 2017.
Shu Lea Cheang is a Taiwanese-American artist and filmmaker who lived and worked in New York City in the 1980s and 1990s, until relocating to Europe in 2000. Since the 1980s, as a multimedia and new-media artist, she has navigated topics of ethnic stereotyping, sexual politics, and institutional oppression with her radical experimentations in digital realms.
Monica Bonvicini is a German-Italian artist who works with installation, sculpture, video, photography and drawing mediums to explore the relationships between architecture and space, power, gender and sexuality. She is considered part of a generation of artists that expanded on the critical practices of the 1960s and 1970s to conceive of space and architecture as a material that could engage with discourses of power and politics, defining art as an active form of ‘critique’. She was awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale in 1999 and the Preis der Nationalgalerie from the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin in 2005. She was appointed Commander of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic in 2012.
The Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design or ArkDes, previously known as the Museum of Architecture (Arkitekturmuseet), is a Swedish national museum dedicated to architecture and design. It is located on the island of Skeppsholmen in Stockholm, Sweden, in the same complex as Moderna Museet. The museum exhibits architecture, urban planning and design under its current acting director Karin Nilsson. It is an administrative authority under the Ministry of Culture.
The Greek pavilion houses Greece's national representation during the Venice Biennale arts festivals.
The national pavilions host each participant nation's official representation during the Venice Biennale, an international art biennial exhibition held in Venice, Italy. Some countries own pavilion buildings in the Giardini della Biennale while others rent buildings throughout the city, but each country controls its own selection process and production costs.
The Australian pavilion is a structure that houses Australia's national representation during the Venice Biennale arts and architecture festivals. Although Australia has been represented at the arts festival since 1954, the first pavilion was only built in 1987, and replaced by a permanent structure in 2015.
The Czech and Slovak pavilion houses the national representation of the Czech Republic and Slovakia during the Venice Biennale arts festivals.
The Korean pavilion houses South Korea's national representation during the Venice Biennale arts festivals.
The Polish pavilion houses Poland's national representation during the Venice Biennale arts festivals.
The Dutch pavilion houses the Netherlands's national representation during the Venice Biennale arts festivals.
The Nordic Pavilion houses the national representation of the Nordic countries Sweden, Norway, and Finland during the Venice Biennale arts festivals.
The 17th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Architecture Biennale, is an upcoming international architecture exhibition. The Biennale takes place biennially in Venice, Italy. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the exhibition will take place in 2021 instead of 2020.
Sidsel Meineche Hansen is a visual artist based in London.
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