Modernity – Loved, hated or ignored?
Exhibition
07.06. – 23.11.2014
Address
Ca’ del Duca
Corte del Duca Sforza
Venice
Commissioner
Fondation de l’Architecture et de l’Ingénierie, Luxembourg
Curators
Stéphanie Laruade, Bohumil Kostohryz, Sophie Langevin, Nuno Lucas Da Costa
Supported by
Ministry of Culture, Luxembourg
Following the international call for projects launched by the Foundation of Architecture and Engineering as commissioner and among the projects submitted by eleven teams, it was the international and multidisciplinary group, made up of the architect Stéphanie Laruade, the photographer Bohumil Kostohryz, the director and actor Sophie Langevin that was designated, by an international committee of experts, as curator of the exhibition with a project entitled “Modernity – loved, hated or ignored?”.
The exhibition “Modernity – loved, hated or ignored?” How has modernity come to dominate everyday experience? How do we view the buildings that we pass every day? Do we reject them or embrace them? Or are we merely indifferent to them? Like special agent Dale Cooper arriving in unknown territory in the small border town of Twin Peaks in the famous TV series by David Lynch, Jane Doe arrives in Luxembourg, where five investigations await her. Each investigation has the same goal, that of retracing the meandering path followed by human beings in their insatiable quest for modernity. This journey through space and time is an encounter with progress and resistance, openness and withdrawal. In contrast with contemporary amnesia, the goal is to resurrect events that formed the memory of a place by means of press reports, personal accounts and documents retrieved from archives. The pieces of evidence gathered in the course of the investigation combine to form parallel stories which are ultimately combined to form a huge puzzle.
The 14th Venice Architecture Biennale “Fundamentals” The exhibition “Modernity – loved, hated or ignored?” perfectly responds to the general theme of the 14th Biennale edition, directed by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas and entitled “Fundamentals”. His aim was to create a real research-exhibition. Thus, to encourage coherence between the contributions of the national pavilions, Koolhaas introduced the specific, common topic of “Absorbing Modernity – 1914-2014”. Each country was invited to study its’ last hundred years of architecture by choosing its’ own accents and defining its’ own original approach to the subject. The result of this is a collective story telling about the impact of “modernity”, supposed to help understanding the current situation.
Curators
Stéphanie Laruade
Architect and town planner (16.10.1975, France)
Student at the Ecole d’Architecture in Paris Val de Seine and at the Faculty of Architecture in Prague. Awarded the architectural diploma, DPLG, in 2000. For 2 years she was working collaboratively with CEFRES in Prague (French centre for research in social sciences) to prepare for her report on housing estates in the socialist era. For her work she had a bursary from the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers in Paris and a Lavoisier bursary from the French Foreign Office. For 2 years she was working on developing the Rescue Plan of the historic centre of Prague and of Cesky Krumlov and at the PAG in the city of Prague, within the planning agency Jan Sedlak. Once settled in Luxembourg in 2002 she goes back to the architectural offices M3architectes and architect Michel Petit before setting up her own architectural and town planning agency in Luxembourg in 2011.
Bohumil Kostohryz
Photographer (19.04.1972, Czech republic)
Lives and currently works in Luxembourg as a freelance photographer within his own public relations agency, boshua Sarl. Principally working in the sphere of architecture, theatre and research, he has an architectural diploma from the Faculty of Architecture in Prague where he also taught photography for 5 years. His way of working is based on a constant examining of the interpretation of reality and fiction through image. Each new subject is an opportunity to challenge the known genres in photography.
Sophie Langevin
Stage director and actress (27.05.1970, France)
Trained at the Kleine Academie in Brussels, at the Ecole du Théâtre de l’Ombre in Paris, and at the Luxembourg Conservatory, she has played in more than forty shows in Luxembourg and France combined. At the same time, in 2007 she signs up for her first staging, Les Pas Perdus by Denise Bonal at the Théâtre des Capucins, followed by Je ne suis jamais allé à Bagdad by Abel Neves at the Théâtre du Centaure which will be played in Lisbon and Oporto. In 2010 she creates La nuit juste avant les forêts by Bernard-Marie Koltès, followed in 2012 by Hiver by Jon Fosse at the Grand Théâtre in the city of Luxembourg, then Histoires de Famille byBiljana Srbljanovic at the Théâtre d’Esch. Moreover she has staged and created shows, arranged L’homme assis dans le couloir by Marguerite Duras, and Celle-là by Daniel Danis. Lastly, with Jacques Raybaut she has made three short films acclaimed in international festivals and portraits of visual artists from Luxembourg.
