A Gradual Stiffening (Rea) vimeo link
Single channel video with accompanying composition by Christian Jendreiko first shown as part of 'Pre-public Scenery' at Petra Rinck Galerie, Düsseldorf in 2018.
The exhibition 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 an interview between Mike Wallace and Frank Lloyd Wright (1957), and also some excerpts from D.Hoffman's book on Wright's 'Falling Water' (which inspired the engineer to build the Rea Shopping Centre), the protagonist Howard Roark in Ayn Rand's 'The Fountainhead' (who was allegedly based on the architect 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.