Arakawa and Madeline Gins: Eternal Gradient

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Exhibitions

Arakawa and Gins Installation View

The exhibition Arakawa and Madeline Gins: Eternal Gradient traces the emergence of architecture as a wellspring of creativity and theoretical exploration for the artist Arakawa (1936-2010) and poet and philosopher Madeline Gins (1941-2014).

In the early 1960s, Arakawa and Madeline Gins began a remarkably original and prolific collaboration that spanned nearly five decades and encompassed painting, installations, poetry, literature, architecture, urbanism, philosophy, and scientific research. Complementing their independent artistic and literary practices, Arakawa and Gins’ creative partnership launched with visual, semiotic, and tactile experiments that questioned the limits and possibilities of human perception and consciousness. During the 1980s—a critical juncture in their careers—this line of inquiry became increasingly spatial as Arakawa and Gins together developed a series of speculative architectural projects that sought to challenge the bodily and psychological experience of users. Through these investigations, the artists began to articulate their concept of reversible destiny, arguing for the transformative capacity of architecture to empower humans to resist their own deaths.

The exhibition examines this pivotal exploratory period through a stunning array of original drawings—many exhibited for the first time—as well as archival material and writings that illuminate the working methods and wide-ranging research interests of Arakawa and Gins. It uncovers a little-known body of visionary work that anticipated the artists’ subsequent commitment to architecture and their realization of various “sites of reversible destiny,” including Ubiquitous Site-Nagi’s Ryoanji (1994, Okayama, Japan); Yoro Park (1995, Gifu, Japan); Reversible Destiny Lofts Mitaka (2005, Tokyo, Japan); and Bioscleave House (2008, East Hampton, New York).

Arakawa and Madeline Gins: Eternal Gradient features over 40 hand drawings, an architectural model, and archival material including ephemera, research materials, poetry, manuscripts, photographs, slides, and other items drawn from the Estate of Madeline Gins.

Arakawa and Madeline Gins: Eternal Gradient is organized by Columbia GSAPP. It is made possible in part by the Estate of Madeline Gins, and is organized in partnership with the Reversible Destiny Foundation.

Curated by Irene Sunwoo, Curator of the Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery and GSAPP Director of Exhibitions, with Tiffany Lambert, GSAPP Assistant Director of Exhibitions.

Exhibition design: Norman Kelley (Carrie Norman & Thomas Kelley), with Betsy Clifton

Graphic design: Eline Mul, Justin Hunt Sloane

Fabrication: Navillus Woodworks, -ism Furniture

Project assistants: Christine Giorgio, Mo Wang

Installation photography: James Ewing

Summer gallery hours: Wednesday-Friday, 1-5pm and Saturday 12-3pm. Closed for Memorial Day weekend, Friday May 25 and Saturday May 26

Press Release

Portrait of Arakawa and Madeline Gins, 2000 / Courtesy Dimitris Yeros