Objects in Space: April Greiman, Made in Space
April Greiman is a thinker, designer, and artist whose transmedia projects, which address all areas and scales of design from communications to textiles and from architecture to new media, together with her innovative use of advanced digital technology, have made her a leader in the design world. Currently she is faculty at the Woodbury University School of Architecture.
While often technically two-dimensional, the works of April Greiman demand space in a specific way around them. The exhibition features a selection of printed graphic identities for architecture firms and institutions with a connection to Los Angeles, as well as three large-scale printed panels of her digital photography, including Sol I Flores from her 2006 Drive-by Shooting series. The selected works attest to her work’s long-standing relationship with architecture and impact our senses at different scales, creating tactile and shimmering microcosms, as well as macrocosms that envelope the viewer.
Each scale encourages second-takes from the visitor as the works highlight the ever-repeating cycle of creating and perceiving our environment. Greiman is interested in the nature of the man-made, her works are carefully considered while playful and flexible (the hanging quote panels were etched on found materials and shapes), reveal the tools of their creation, yet, are allowed to live in the subjective perceptual reality of the observer.
Greiman’s work has been recognized with numerous awards including the Medal of the American Institute of Graphic Arts and the prestigious Chrysler Award for Innovation and is in the permanent collections of The Museum of Modern Art; Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum; Pompidou Center and Library of Congress. Greiman’s digital photography and transmedia work have been the subject of recent solo exhibitions at Visual Arts Museum, School of Visual Arts, NY (2008) and the Pasadena Museum of California Art (2006). In 2007, Greiman completed her largest single work to date: a public art mural, Hand Holding a Bowl of Rice, that spans 7 stories of two building facades marking the entrance to the Wilshire Vermont Metro Station in LA.
Many thanks to April Greiman and the Woodbury School of Architecture for this show!
This exhibition would not have been possible without the help of Ju Lee and Sunny Song at Made In Space, Oscar Corletto, and Karni Hadidian at the School of Architecture’s Woodshop and Digital Fabrication Lab, the friendly and helpful student staff at both places, Henry Lau and Brandon Muse at the IT department and Galina Kraus in Administration and our Wedge TA, Parya Nassiri.
The exhibition was curated and co-designed by Donatella Cusmá and Bojána Bányász, faculty at the School of Architecture and principals at Claret-Cup.
