The International Center of Photography is a project that deals with the epidemic of the museum and its ability to portray not only the artwork that is present in that space, but the architecture starts to speak to the artwork being placed in its collection as well.
The question we began with when looking at the Institute of Photography was what is the real meaning of ICP, as it is an implementation of a system of works but of what genre or theme was to be determined. The Institute of Photography, located on Bowery street in Chinatown is a site that acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the purpose of education, study, and enjoyment.
We began the exploration of our ICP center with an analysis of photographic works from artists like David Hockney, Edward Weston, Harold Eugene Edgarton, and David Seigner. We dissected these photos to understand their advancement in time and space.
After careful analysis, we understood what these artists represented in their photography is a sense of movement, of elapsed time until stoppage and crucial pauses. These developments helped to create our galleries, which explore movement and time through this same means of stoppage and pause. This continues beyond the galleries, giving an emphasis of time and movement throughout other crucial spaces of our building including the lobby, auditorium space, and the private student galleries These moments of pause allow for intertwining of spaces by allowing for space to fold out between each pathway of inter-section, its pause, and movement from that pause onto the next.
These moments of pause within the programs where then dissected further to create stoppages of anticipation, action, and reaction. These guidelines created the floor plans of our building within each program, anticipating the lobby for the action of the gallery with the reaction of the offices and school. These moments intertwined the body of the system that was the ICP of movement artwork. This artwork would become part of this pathway, moving through the spaces created through a system of framed moments.
Critics: Mark Rakatansky
