Instant Modernism
Pressrelease for ACE Gallery by Elizabeth Dunbar
Berlin-based sculptor Valeska Peschke presents her latest inflatable dwelling
entitled "Instant Modernism" (2000). Being shown in the United States for the
first time, "Instant Modernism" is the second inflatable work from Peschke's
series Plug In @ Instant City which she began in 1998.
For nearly a decade Valeska Peschke has been exploring ideas related to the
topic of urbanism, a significant and timely subject matter given the fall of
the Berlin wall in 1989 and the city's subsequent political transformation
and civic renovation and revitalization. The massive program of building that
is currently underway in Germany's capital city has been the impetus for much
of Peschke's work. Many of her recent projects, including prototypes of buildings
and houses as well as cartographic and topological examinations, have dealt
with capturing the urban explosion and exposing the city as a volatile site
of cultural history, personal memory, and shifting definitions of territory
and home.
Peschke's Plug In @ Instant City series can be seen as a continuation of the
utopian models of affordable housing first proposed by architects and urban
planners in the early twentieth century. Like her predecessors, Peschke is
interested in designing the ideal private home--one that satisfies the middle-class
American dream of homeownership. In "Instant Modernism," however, Peschke has
taken the pre-fabricated materials and reductive structures championed by such
modernist architects as Mies van der Rohe and has given them an unusual twist.
Heeding Mies' mandate that architecture be true to its materials and structure,
Peschke has created a single-volume dwelling composed purely of air and vinyl.
While modernist in concept, the home could actually be described as "modernism
in vain" for it is soft, rather rounded, and dependent on perpetual inflation.
A gleaming white minimalist object, "Instant Modernism" fully inflates to a
size of 30 x 10 x 11 feet in just two minutes with the help of an air pump.
Not only is the "home" easy to set up and take down, it is also easy to transport
to multiple sites. As a result, "Instant Modernism" is the perfect choice of
dwelling for the transient homeowner. Because of its inherent mobility and
its suitability to any environment, the work raises questions about what a
home really is and what it provides. For instance, what elements define a home?
How is a home related to geographical territory? If the site of your home constantly
changes, then to what place do you truly belong?
As the second in a series of inflatable dwellings (additional designs are still
to come), "Instant Modernism" gives potential homeowners a choice in available
housing options. In this case, consumers can select "modernism" as their individual
choice in an instant life--or they can occupy multiple identities by choosing
several different types of dwellings. In any case, homeowners can now choose
their identity and change it as often as they desire, depending on their selection
of home model or site location. At the crux of it all is the inflatable home's
capacity to provide an identity of independence and self-reliance, characteristics
that are especially significant to a German artist striving to integrate herself
within American society.