29 Observatory

Architectural installation, Independent Art Fair 2012, former Dia building Chelsea NY, Nov. 2011 – Mar. 2012

Drywalls, canvas, pigments, Homasote


To animate the circulation in the three exhibition floors, we rotate along the building’s central axis the inner walls that are in an X-configuration by 29˚. With this shift away from the orientation of the New York City grid, these walls run perfectly from north to south and from east to west. Conversely, the outer walls of each space relate to the surrounding walls of the old factory building located in Chelsea. Unlike in other art fairs, we built thick walls and generated calm corners for tranquil art viewing.

On the roof, we created a playful environment in a fully transparent tent. We frame the sky with canvas, which is stretched ten feet above the floor. Through research of the constellations that appear over the city in March, we based the cut-out in the canvas on the Lesser Bears constellation starting with a round hole above the staircase for Polaris and going all the way to the group around Kochab in the main tent. The remnants of this celestial shaped ceiling cover the floor, creating an island with basic information about the stars to enjoy the view, a drink, or read a magazine. Four publishers present their publications on and around a wall that is built in the X-configuration. On the wall’s north-south axis, a pinhole frames the North Star; in the wall’s east-west axis, a pinhole outlines the Empire State Building, which is exactly west of our installation.

The lounge is furnished with custom-made furniture built out of Homasote®, a building material made from post-consumer paper product. The furniture is based on the same concept of the star constellations and zero waste: the material we cut off from the organically shaped tabletop or seat will be used for legs. In the course of the five day fair, the furniture will show wear-and-tear, while the floor will show the crowd’s circulation pattern, which will manifest through placing a pile of pigment from one of the four colors from the CMYK printing template in front of each publisher’s stand.

Project team: Adrian Madlener, Madeline Hollander, Peter Dumbadze,

Photos: Tom Powel Imaging Inc.