Taking Over

About the Show:

Taking Over features multiple works by conceptual artist Pablo Gómez Uribe that explore intentional deconstruction, centering on El Gordon Demolition, an ongoing project initiated in 2012.

Fundamentally, El Gordon Demolition is a demolition company that mirrors an architecture firm. The legitimate LLC can be understood as both an artwork with discrete elements, as well as a framework for Gómez Uribe's overall way of working. Installed to look like a functional business, the site-responsive work may make MA's clients think they have entered the wrong office suite.

This installation is complemented by the documentation of other site-responsive projects, including Para Un Futuro Peor (2015), in which Gómez Uribe covered the façade of the artist/architect-run space CAMPO with trompe l’oeil “tiles” made of cardboard. Commonly known as "butter" board in architecture schools, the cardboard tiles were installed using the same precise engineering and design one would use if working with stone or ceramic.

By “creating” work using deconstruction, in an act of architectural refusal, Gómez Uribe builds upon the legacy of artists like Gordon Matta Clark, whose “anarchitecture” practice embodied “making space without building it.”

About the Artist:

Pablo Gómez Uribe is an artist and an architect. Through sculptures, installations, and ephemeral gestures, he offers searing, wry critiques of architecture’s visionary yet romanticized approach to designing new structures, particularly in urban environments. Since 2008 he has maintained a double residence between Medellín (Colombia) and New York (USA), which allows him to reflect on the nature of construction, destruction and socio-political influence on architecture in these two contrasting cities.

From a fictional space, his installations appear as scientific laboratories, constantly testing materials, comparing samples and collecting urban objects in search of a more solid, stable and ideal city. In Gómez Uribe’s practice imperfections are recovered and declared as artwork.

About Exhibitions at MA:

For more than 10 years, MA's Manhattan office has served as a space for rotating Art Exhibitions, showcasing the work of painters, photographers, sculptors, and other artists whose ideas resonate with the firm's values. These exhibitions not only enrich the practice but also create a platform for connecting clients, artists, and others to inspire collaboration and build community. As a natural progression of this platform, in 2019, MA established an in-house Art Services department to develop and deliver art programs that respond directly to the firm's architecture and interior designs and a project's specific context and ambition.

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Host or Publisher MA | Morris Adjmi Architects