A Gradual Stiffening (Rea), 2018
Single channel video with accompanying sound composition by
Christian Jendreiko
22'
First shown as part of 'Pre-public Scenery' at Petra Rinck Galerie, Düsseldorf in 2018.
'Pre-public Scenery' formed part of an ongoing interest in private and public spaces made by and for people, and conflicts between the individual and society. Initial ideas began on Wright's residency at the British School at Athens in 2016 which have since developed into a body of work that draws out relationships between shared identities, cultures and trade as well as individualism, society and responsibility, with particular focus on an Athenian engineer and his vacant Shopping Centre Rea. The exhibition included sculpture, installation, moving image, photography and textiles.
The script in 'A Gradual Stiffening (Rea)' is made up from a variety of sources, primarily a primetime television interview between presenter Mike Wallace and the architect Frank Lloyd Wright (1957), and also some excerpts from Donald Hoffmann's book on Wright's 'Falling Water' (1978, which inspired the Rea Shopping Centre), the protagonist Howard Roark in Ayn Rand's 'The Fountainhead' (1943, allegedly based on Wright), and 'The Organization Man' (1956) by William H. Whyte, which is a curious account of the rise of bureaucracy and the 'middle-man' in 1950's America.