Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin OH

At the invitation of the FRONT Triennial, Barbara Bloom has created a work specifically for the Ellen Johnson Gallery at the Allen Memorial Art Museum. Part of an addition to the museum, the space was designed by the architect Robert Venturi in the 1970s and named after Oberlin College’s esteemed professor of modern and contemporary art. Far from a neutral white cube, the Johnson Gallery is a complex space that, in Bloom’s words, “screams ‘Architecture’ with a capital A.”

Rather than ignore the gallery’s eccentricities, Bloom has chosen to accentuate them through a carefully curated and placed selection of works from the collection of the Allen Memorial Art Museum, all of which depict architecture in some form. The works featured include paintings, prints, drawings, and photographs from a wide range of cultures and time periods. They are shown using a variety of display devices that allow the viewer to navigate the space architecturally, and to experience these works as though they are willing themselves off of the two-dimensional plane and into space. This process of reverse-rendering the works into three dimensions highlights and heightens their architectural essences, and further directs attention back to the space of the gallery itself.

This project was commissioned by FRONT International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art. THE RENDERING (H X W X D =) is presented by FRONT International: An American City: Eleven Cultural Exercises with support from the Eric & Jane Nord Family Fund and the Nord Family Foundation.

Images: Barbara Bloom, THE RENDERING (H X W X D =), 2018. Installation views at the Allen Memorial Art Museum. Commissioned by FRONT International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art. July 14-December 16, 2018. Courtesy of the artist and David Lewis, New York. Photography by Field Studio.