Page 21 - "he 2020 Guggenheim issue of World of Art Contemporary Art Magazine

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

Troy Conrad Therrien, Curator of Architecture and Digital Histories and transformations of the countryside are
Initiatives at the Guggenheim Museum and organizer of illustrated along the six levels of the rotunda’s ramp, each
the exhibition:”Countryside, The Future isn’t so much level with its own theme. Designed by AMO/Koolhaas
a culmination as a reveal, the wholesale delivery of a and graphic designer Irma Boom in collaboration with the
decade of insight into the marketplace of ideas and opinion Guggenheim’s exhibition and graphic design staff, this mix
on what’s to come. The exhibition begins the way the of imagery, films, archival materials, wallpaper graphics, a
accompanying book ends: with a tapestry of questions, printed curtain, objects, text, and reproduced artworks, and
almost a thousand in total, that simultaneously declare robotic sculptures presents an unfolding narrative of case
the thoroughness of the investigation and a still-unsated studies contextualized by a broad array of VOICeS.
curiosity for the countryside, or what Rem Koolhaas
calls an ’ignored realm.’ Ignored by whom? Rem, for one. Exterior: Outside the museum entrance on Fifth Avenue,
The declaration isn’t hubris, it’s a challenge for us all, a hermetically sealed industrial grow container cultivates
countryside inhabitants and experts included, to think anew tomatoes under pink LED lights and a finely tuned
about what may seem foreign or familiar.” microclimate. Also positioned at the entrance to the
museum is a high-tech, state-of-the-art Deutz-Fahr tractor
Overview of Countryside, The Future used in industrial farming.
As the exhibition unfolds, it addresses questions about the
development and role of the countryside over time: What Rotunda: On the publicly accessible street-level floor
was the countryside historically, what did the major political of the museum are cut-outs, objects, and extracts in
figures of the twentieth century prepare for us, what is the the style of an ancient Roman unswept floor. Suspended
current condition, what needs to be done for the future, and above the fountain in the rotunda is a small imaging
in what ways could this take shape? satellite, an industrial-size bale of hay, and a COTSbot-a

WORLD of ART 21