Big City Forum #21

Murmur

Mass Architecture and Design

Tighe Architecture

Big City Forum #21

Goethe Institute
5750 Wilshire Blvd. #100
Los Angeles, CA 90036
(323) 525-3388

Thursday, Nov. 4th, 2010
7 – 9 pm

An engaging presentation and panel conversation exploring architecture’s role in helping to shape and define an LA based identity.

Featuring:
Ana Henton
Heather Roberge
Patrick Tighe

Moderated by:
Jade Chang


Ana Henton, Co-Founder & Design Principal, Mass Architecture and Design
Ana Henton received her M.A. in Architecture from Princeton University in 1996, after which she relocated to New York, where she worked for a number of firms, including Steven Holl. She was one of the founders of Freecell, an award-winning design collective that focused on high concept design/build work. In 1998, Henton moved to L.A. and worked at Frank Gehry Partners for 5 years on a number of significant projects including the new Corcoran College and Museum of Art in Washington D.C. Ana launched her own practice in 2003 concentrating on small but design oriented projects.

Heather Roberge, Principal, Murmur
Heather Roberge is a practicing architect and educator in Los Angeles. She is Associate Vice Chair of the Department of Architecture at UCLA, and is Director of the undergraduate program in Architectural Studies. She teaches graduate courses in design and technology. Murmur has a special focus on the spatial, structural and atmospheric innovation made possible by emerging digital design and manufacturing techniques. Ms. Roberge’s research focuses on the atmospheric implications of contemporary surfaces with particular interest in formal and material experimentation that engages the senses.

Ms. Roberge has taught at UCLA since 2002 and has recently attended juries at Southern California Institute of Architecture (Sci-Arc), Rice University, University of California Berkeley, California College of the Arts, and the University of Southern California. Prior to 2000, she taught in New York at Pratt Institute and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and was a visiting critic at Columbia University, Cornell University, and the University of Houston. Ms. Roberge received both her Bachelor of Science and her Master of Architecture degrees at The Ohio State University, where she received the AIA Certificate of Excellence and graduated Summa cum laude. In 1995, Ms. Roberge studied at the Architectural Association in London.

Patrick Tighe, Principal, Tighe Architecture
Patrick Tighe, AIA, FAAR is principal and lead designer of Tighe Architecture located in Santa Monica, California. The firm is committed to realizing an authentic, contemporary Architecture informed by technology, sustainability and building innovation. Since the inception of the practice in 2000, the firm has received numerous accolades. In 2007, Patrick Tighe was awarded the distinguished Rome Prize Fellowship from the American Academy. Honors include several National AIA Awards, the AIAs Young Architect Award, 40 under 40 Award, American Architecture Awards, a Progressive Architecture Award as local AIA Honors.

Tighe received a Master of Architecture from the University of California, Los Angeles. Prior to establishing the practice, Tighe was an integral part of the Morphosis Team where he was an Associate. Tighe is a licensed Architect in the State of California and a Member of the American Institute of Architects. Teaching appointments have been conducted at USC, UCLA, and Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) where Patrick is currently a Faculty Member. The work has been exhibited internationally and published extensively.

Jade Chang is a Los Angeles-based writer. Recently the West Coast Editor of Metropolis Magazine, she has also been a film columnist for the BBC and a Sundance Arts Writing Fellow; in 2007 she received the AIGA/Winterhouse Design Criticism award. As a journalist Jade has covered everything from deconstructed tomato soup to the hidden rebellion of minimalls for the LA Times, LA Weekly, Angeleno and others. She is currently the Executive Producer of Modern Luxury Media online and a Contributing Editor at Metropolis.

Big City Forum #20

Big City Forum #20
Saturday, Oct. 2nd, 2010
5 – 7 pm

Honor Fraser Gallery
2622 S La Cienega Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90034
(310) 837-0191

A gathering of four curators that are impacting and changing the future of the practice at the institutional and non-traditional context.

Featuring:
Andrew Berardini
Shamim Momim
Pilar Tompkins Rivas
Franklin Sirmans

Andrew Berardini is a writer living in Los Angeles. He's contributed in the past to Rolling Stone, LA Weekly, Art Review, and frieze. Recent curatorial efforts include original projects with Bruce Nauman, Dave Muller, Yoshua Okon and Raymond Pettibon. Currently he holds the positions of Los Angeles editor for Mousse and Senior Editor for Artslant, and has previously worked with Semiotext(e) Press as an editor and the Armory Center for the Arts as a curator. He recently penned a monograph on the work of Richard Jackson, published by the Rennie Collection in Vancouver.

Shamim M. Momin, former contemporary curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art, is based in New York and Los Angeles, where she is the Director, Curator, and co-founder of the recently formed Los Angeles Nomadic Division (LAND), a non-profit public art organization. Her most recent projects include The Secret (Still) Knows (2010), a reinterpretation of a group exhibition presented in Austin, TX entitled The Secret Knows (2010), LAND’s VIA/Stage 1 (2010), a suite of temporary public projects in and around Los Angeles that featured new commissions by Mexico-based artists Artemio, José León Cerrillo, Gonzalo Lebrija, and Moris. Other recent projects include PavilioM at the 53rd Venice Biennale (2009), Nothingness and Being at the Fundación Jumex (2009), a commissioned exhibition and performance by Yoshua Okón and Barry Johnston at Not to Be Reproduced (NTBR), Los Angeles (2009), and an independent group exhibition, The Station (2008), which took place in approximately 14,000 square feet of unoccupied raw space in a mid-town Miami development during ArtBasel 2008. As Associate Curator at the Whitney Museum, she co-curated both the 2008 and 2004 Whitney Biennial exhibitions, as well as solo exhibitions of Alex Bag (2009), Terence Koh (2007), Mark Grotjahn (2006), Raymond Pettibon (2005-06), and Banks Violette: Untitled (2005). As Branch Director and Curator of the former Whitney Museum at Altria since 2000, she was responsible for organizing exhibitions and commissioning more than fifty new projects by emerging artists for both solo and thematic presentations. Notable Altria projects have featured artists such as Andrea Zittel, Rob Fischer, Sue de Beer, Luis Gispert, Katie Grinnan, Mark Bradford, Dario Robleto, Ellen Harvey, Do-Ho Suh, and E.V. Day.
In addition to her Whitney exhibition catalogues, Momin has contributed to numerous other publications, including artist monographs, exhibition catalogues, and art periodicals. She participates regularly on juries and panels in the US and abroad and is a recent recipient of ArtTable’s New Leadership Award. Momin was also Adjunct Professor of Contemporary Art for Williams College for the 2007 and 2008 Semester in New York program.

Pilar Tompkins Rivas is an independent curator in Los Angeles, and director of the Latin American branch of the Artist Pension Trust, APT: Mexico City. Additionally, she is former curator of the Claremont Museum of Art (CMA). Ms. Tompkins Rivas is currently curating multiple exhibitions for the Getty Foundation's Pacific Standard Time initiative including the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs' institutional histories of the Los Angeles Municipal Gallery and the Watts Towers Arts Center, and the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center’s suite of exhibitions L.A. Xicano to be held at UCLA’s Fowler Museum, LACMA and the Autry Museum. Ms. Tompkins Rivas’ current projects also include the exhibition Bas Jan Ader: Suspended Between Laughter and Tears at Pitzer College, and Citizen, Particiant at Darb 1718 in Cairo, Egypt. Recent exhibitions include: Post American L.A., Multiverse, The Passerby Museum and Vexing: Female Voices from East L.A. Punk which represented the City of Los Angeles at the 2009 Guadalajara International Book Fair. In 2006, she was a founding director and curator of The MexiCali Biennial, a bi-national art exhibition and music event transcending the constraints of the US/Mexico border.

Franklin Sirmans is the Terri and Michael Smooke Department Head and Curator of Contemporary Art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. From 2006 to 2010, he was the Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at The Menil Collection in Houston, TX, where he organized several exhibitions including NeoHooDoo: Art for a Forgotten Faith, Maurizio Cattelan, Steve Wolfe: On Paper and Contemporary Conversations: John Chamberlain.

Sirmans has written essays for several exhibition catalogues and articles and reviews in publications such as The New York Times, Time Out New York, Essence, and Grand Street. He is the cocurator of the forthcoming exhibition Vija Celmins: Television and Disaster, (The Menil Collection and Los Angeles County Museum of Art), travels to LACMA, winter 2011.
He was the 2007 recipient of the David C. Driskell Prize awarded by the High Museum of Art, Atlanta and in 2009 was an inaugural honoree of the Gold Rush Awards by Rush Philanthropic Art Foundation.