Evan Douglis
(1959)
USA
 

 

 

The architect Evan Douglis teaches and runs the exhibition spaces at the Arthur Ross architecture Gallery at Columbia University in New York. His interactive installations for exhibitions endeavour to surmount the traditional dichotomy between exhibition space and works exhibited. In his installations and exhibitions, Evan Douglis explores this exchange and tries to produce a “mutant body” in the aim of becoming both his own exhibition and a critical commentary on the distancing of objects in the information age. Let us mention, by way of example, his project Auto Braids/Auto Breeding exhibited in October 2003 at the group show Sign as Surface at the Artists’ Space in New York. Auto Braids/Auto Breeding developed around a membrane created by the use of different mathematical and digital tools: between Cartesian grid, digital systems and curved forms. This membrane was above all a relational surface without any particular scale, and not an autonomous system. It had no basic identity and preferred to retain its nomadic character both in its form (it can be moved and rebuilt in different ways) and in its meaning. This surface punctuated by turquoise waves and eyes was used as a scenographic medium at the exhibition Jean Prouvé, Three Nomadic Structures at the Arthur Ross Gallery at Columbia Universty in 2004.