On the Possibility of a New Balloon Animal rigorously examines a frivolous object in order to advocate a possible future for architecture and art. Returning to Jeff Koons’s Rabbit of 1986 as an exemplar, the lecture poses a series of questions to establish the terms of this speculation: How do balloon animals construct an audience? What might it mean to make a wholly new balloon animal? And how can the logic of a balloon animal extend to the domain of architecture? While balloon animals have a “seriousness problem” – superficially considered they might seem indelibly associated with pop art and children’s birthday parties – a close reading yields a set of generalizable principles that escape these associations and suggest a radical reworking of the built environment and our place in it.
Lecture by Andrew Holder
Andrew Holder is an architectural designer, educator, and occasional author. He is a leading figure in an emerging discourse on the construction of architecture as an inanimate subject. Andrew is currently Assistant Professor of Architecture at the University of Michigan and co-Principal of The LADG, a firm he co-founded in Los Angeles in 2005. His academic and built work has been recognised for novel approaches to figuration, engagement of historical precedent, the solicitation of audience, and the production of complex form in a post-digital discipline. Andrew has held teaching appointments at the University of California, Los Angeles, Sci-Arc, and Otis College of Art and Design, and is a frequent guest critic at institutions across the United States. His design work has received numerous awards, including the 2014 League Prize from the Architectural League of New York.
Andrew Holder
Assistant Professor of Architecture
University of Michigan
Tuesday 5 August 6.00 pm
ICTE Auditorium, Sir Llew Edwards Building (No. 14)
St Lucia campus
Click for map here
Free. All welcome.
Bookings essential as numbers are limited
Refreshments will be served, after the lecture, in the foyer of the UQ Art Museum.
Click to RSVP by Friday 1 August
