Normally, construction projects work from the ground up. But what if these constructions could disintegrate and reinvent themselves in a similar fashion? History is revisited and reimagined by New York-based artists Anthony Aziz and Sammy Cucher with a remarkable project entitled Time of the Empress at The Screening Room in Wynwood.`
Architecture, devoid of practical associations with their environmental, meta-historic and current socio-political surroundings, can possess both memory and character. The concept of the architectural 'ruin' has been theorized since the Enlightenment (specifically via Immanuel Kant) as a suggestion of the realm of the sublime: a single object that inspires romance and nostalgia in the realm of practical aesthetics. But modern and contemporary architectural objects behave very differently. Unlike the ruins of the ancient Greeks, Romans, Babylonians, Chinese or Persians, buildings created in the modern era cannot exist as beautiful objects in their own right. New architecture is purpose-built, which may or may not be blessed with elements of classical embellishment. Aziz + Cucher have taken the structural frames of bombed-out buildings in Sarajevo and rendered them digitally: as each building appears to spontaneously generate from a swirling, buzzing atomic cloud at its base, it is this base that seems to devour the structure from the bottom up. Seven flat screens are hung vertically in the dark vestibule of The Screening Room, arranged in a half-circle across the space. This installation capably embraces and mesmerizes its viewers, with the spectacle of the postmodern cyclical birth and death reaching maximum potential.
Aziz + Cucher: Time of the Empress is presented by The Screening Room and was curated by Tami Katz-Freiman. The exhibition opened on November 21, 2013 and runs until March 14, 2014. The Screening Room is directed by Rhonda Mitrani and is located in the Mitrani Warehouse at 2626 NW 2nd Avenue in Wynwood. For more information, call (305) 582-7191 or visit www.thescreeningroommiami.com
