The Confluence of Art & Architecture
Frank Gehry, one of the most innovative architects working today (at 86 years old), most known for his designs of iconic buildings such as the Bilbao Guggenheim, the Walt Disney Concert Hall, and the Biomuseo in Panama City, continues his artistic journey with his latest exhibition at Gagosian Gallery in Manhattan on Madison Avenue.
As a little boy, Gehry watched live carp swimming in his grandmother's bathtub on their way to becoming gefilte fish. A simple creature, most often dwelling in the darkness of streams and ponds, with nothing of significance to be said about it. And yet, he loved the shapes and movements they made, the sparkle of the scales in the intermittent curves of its movements. Gehry’s fascination with the fish as a “perfect form” has been a recurring theme in his work since the 1980’s, his Fish Lamps an evolution of exploration into organic forms and the iconography of marine life.
“Ruminations'' is no different - rooted in Ghery’s iconic Fish Lamps and his idea that “the fish is the model for the future of architecture because it expresses sculptural movement.” Ghery’s sculptures vary in size and scale throughout the exhibit. Some hanging from the ceiling with a utilitarian component, a warm glow emanating from the scales to provide light and ambiance in the otherwise stark gallery. While others, almost monolithic in structure, meant for reflection and curiosity into Ghery’s world, where the line between architecture and art is less defined. The exhibition’s large-scale fish sculptures visible from Madison Avenue.
Gehry, it seems, has always experimented with sculpture, creating inventive forms out of unexpected materials. These sculptures, created from the reflective surfaces of copper and Formica, encapsulate the fluidity and impermanence of marine life that has captivated him since he was a boy. Impermanence, elegance, fluidity. The very things Ghery believes architectural composition should arise from. What his architectural composition arises from. All of Gehry's designs, especially his architectural projects, are united by their sense of movement. He embeds motion directly into his architecture and sculptures so that his projects flow, curve and bend in unexpected ways, like the carp in his grandmother’s bathtub. Bypassing traditional norms.
As I walked through the gallery, I couldn’t help but think, where does the line between architecture end, and art begin? Is there one? Does it need to be defined? While both are created using the same visual elements, composition principles, and creative freedom, the utilitarian necessity of the structure paints the lines for architects they cannot color outside of.
And perhaps an even more radical question, where is the line between drawing inspiration from the natural world, and simply replicating it when creating art? While thoughtful and detailed, much of Ghery’s work in “Ruminations'' leaves very little to be interpreted. Which, to me, is the fun part. There is no mistaking the sculptures of the coupled pair of fish moving in tandem with the waves of the sea, the curious crocodile slithering through the grass, the singular majestic carp showing off his starlight scales.
Some of Gehry’s most notable architectural projects combine industrial architecture with modern art, such as the Walt Disney Concert Hall and Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein, Germany. They convey a much more subtle and inconspicuous reference to the marine life he is so inspired by, always a subtle undertone while still taking into account the client’s brief. And yet, you may still think, ‘what is this inspired by?’. His architecture not grasping tightly for the categorization of art, but simply existing as such.
What was most intriguing to me, and perhaps the most notable departure from what we have come to expect from Gehry, were his watercolors.
When inquiring with the Gallerist, I discovered watercolor is most often Gehry’s medium of choice for sketching, ideating. While not a new material, it is often one kept for only himself. This is what intrigues me most about art, about self expression. It is those glimpses into the most intimate moments of the artist. The details of his life, the stories in his mind, where I can walk away thinking “I see who you are.” Room for interpretation. The watercolors were like having a deeper glimpse into his mind. Each stroke a breadcrumb leading us to the finalized, freshly baked warm loaf of sourdough ready for us to enjoy in the form of glowy copper fish, and onyx crocodiles.
The confluence of art and architecture is analogous to pop culture and fashion, politics and music, grief and love. To experience the fullness of one is to experience the totality of the other. It is a meeting point of two rivers, equal in power and gravity. The line is blurry, but maybe it’s meant to be. It is the blurriness that gives each its own respective meaning, its depth, and its need for introspection.
What can be said with certainty, is music, fashion, art or architecture, the creators of skill and talent - learned or innate, all have something to say, a memory to give existence to in perpetuity, a feeling with the potential to transcend an inanimate object into our animated beings. The feelings I left with upon leaving “Ruminations”? The wonder of childhood. The hope that things are more than they appear to be at first glance. That the hidden starlight beauty of a carp fish exists inside me too in someone else’s eyes, if not always my own.
