Berlin | ArtRegion: Schöneberg

Under The Mango Tree (utmt)

Lila Chitayat & Gabi Schillig: Bodies without organs

28. August – 14. Oktober 2021

With her installation A casa é o corpo (The House is the Body), the Brazilian artist Lygia Clark made an analogy between architecture and the human organism in 1968. The walk-in work was modeled as the inside of the body and aimed at the interaction between visitors and
their immediate surroundings. The parallels between body and space were not unknown:Siegfried Ebeling‘s – Space as Membrane (1926) depicted the wall as a transition stage of forces, analogous to the skin, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe spoke of “skin-and-bones architecture” as early as 1924. This approach suggests that building envelopes have become part of our organism. Behind this is an ecological conception of architecture, which can be explained by the fact that both the house and the skin represent instances that are inextricably linked to people. Both function on one hand as a border, on the other hand as a connecting surface that takes on the tasks of a shelter. They not only separate the inside from
the outside, but also serve as a place of retreat and reflection from an environment that is changing ever faster. However, especially in times of a pandemic, the perception and function of public and private spaces must be re-thought