Page 18 - "he 2020 Guggenheim issue of World of Art Contemporary Art Magazine

Installation View: Countryside, The Future
Photo: David Heald © Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation

collectively identified here as ”countryside,” or the 98% of European initiatives, Chinese politics, and other forces. This
the Earth’s surface not occupied by cities. story is largely untold, and it is particularly meaningful for
A central thesis of the exhibition is that our current form AMO to present it in one of the world’s great museums in
of urban life has necessitated the organization, abstraction, one of the world’s densest cities.”
and automation of the countryside at an unprecedented
scale. Data storage, fulfillment centers, genetic engineering, Richard Armstrong, Director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim
artificial intelligence, robotic automation, economic Museum and Foundation:’’Countryside, The Future marks a
innovation, worker migration, and the private purchase turn in trajectory for Rem Koolhaas following a career-long
of land for ecological preservation are in many cases focus on cities, presenting the curious encounters, stories,
more actively explored and experimented with in the phenomena, conditions, fears, and hopes that he and his
countryside than the city. The impact of global warming colleagues discovered on their travels through rural areas
on specific countryside conditions underlies much of the around the world. With this bold exhibition, the Guggenheim
show. In Siberia, the thawing of permafrost is dramatically carries forward its legacy of risk-taking, addressing
transforming the landscape and releasing increasing urgent global concerns with a project that goes beyond
amounts of methane with potentially catastrophic cultural matters into political, anthropological, scientific,
consequences. technological, and philosophical territory.”

Rem Koolhaas: ”In the past decade, I have noticed that while Samir BantaI, Director of AMO: ’This is a collection of new
much of our energies and intelligence have been focused on and old ideas that aims to rediscover the dynamics of the
the urban areas of the world, the countryside has changed countryside. A place many of us think of as stable and slow-
dramatically under the influence of global warming, the moving is revealed as an incredibly agile and flexible realm,
market economy, American tech companies, African and even more than any modern metropolis.”

18 WORLD of ART