Penelope Haralambidou: The Blossoming of Perspective
10.01.07 – 20.01.07
The Blossoming of Perspective is an exhibition of drawings, paintings, collages and models, studying the underlying architecture of Marcel Duchamp’s secret pornographic assemblage, Given: 1st the waterfall, 2nd the illuminating gas…, 1946–66 (Given).
Even in its recent digital phase, architectural drawing remains dependent primarily on orthographic or parallel projection, a Cartesian understanding of space, closely connected with the Renaissance invention of linear perspective and the monocular visual pyramid. Inspired by Jean–François Lyotard’s reading of Given as an incarnation, but also inversion, of the rules of linear perspective, this exhibition of drawings studies its spatial arrangement in search of an alternative understanding of visual space.
Drawing on Duchamp's term 'blossoming', The Blossoming of Perspective analyses Given as a physically constructed stereo–drawing attempting to unlock the erotic potential of spatial representation. Stereoscopy, as an expanded visual schema, is Given's central and intentional theme – a creative tool, influencing its intellectual content, guiding its manufacturing process and pointing to an expanded representation technique in architecture.
Haralambidou’s work lies between architectural design, art practice, art history and critical theory and uses drawing as a critical method. A book of selected drawings including essays by TJ Demos, Jonathan Hill, Lorens Holm, Brigid Mc Leer and Penelope Haralambidou accompanies the exhibition. The exhibition and book are kindly supported by the Bartlett School of Architecture, Architecture Research Fund and the Graduate School, UCL.
Penelope Haralambidou is an architect, researcher and lecturer at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. Her work investigates cultural constructs of spatial perception, imagination and representation, she sees architectural drawing as a critical method, and her projects have been distinguished in international competitions and exhibited in Europe and the US, most notably at: domobaal gallery, London, 2006; Slade Galleries, London, 2004; Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, 2002; and 7th Biennale of Architecture, Venice, 2000. She was a founding member of Tessera, a collaborative architectural practice addressing issues of contemporary public space through the design of exhibitions such as Athens–Scape: The 2004 Olympics and the Metabolism of the City, RIBA, London, 2003, and Heart, Art Directors Club, New York, 2003.