LONDON.- Betts Project announces Wayward Eye an exhibition of photography of the 1950s and 1960s by legendary architect-planner and theorist Denise Scott Brown. This will be Scott Browns first solo exhibition in the UK.
"Im not a photographer. I shoot for architectureif theres art here its a byproduct. Yet the images stand alone. Judge what you see.
In 1956, Robert Scott Brown and I photographed architectural set pieces of Venice as records to return to while practicing in Africa. But in the process, more than architecture crept into our photographs.
In 1965, after ten years of urbanism, my foci were automobile cities of the American Southwest, social change, multiculturalism, action, everyday architecture, 'messy vitality,' iconography, and Pop Art.
Waywardness lay in more than my eye.
Do I hate it or love it?
'Dont ask,' said my inner voice. 'Just shoot.'
For Robert Venturi and me, these sequences from Venice to Venice, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas provided inspiration and they still do. And via them, architectural photography initiated a move beyond beauty shots and data. Over the last 60 years, by adding analysis, synthesis, recommendation, and design, it has gone from tool to subdiscipline in architecture."
Denise Scott Brown
Taken between 1956 and 1966, these photographs reveal Scott Browns formative explorations into urban systems, Pop Art, and the complexity of the American vernacularinterests that she and partner Robert Venturi would later develop in the pivotal Learning from Las Vegas. The photographs offer a glimpse into the social transformations of the 1960s as seen through the wayward eye of one of architectures most influential practitioners.
Scott Browns photography is more than a means of documenting buildings it is a tool for observation and analysis, an exploration of culture, aesthetics, history, and society. Through photography, Scott Brown traces continuities from the geometric vistas of Tintorettos Venice to the neon modernism of the Vegas Strip. For todays architects, artists, and social scientists, these images provide models for design research and visual thinking.
Photographs are available for purchase at Betts Project. Each photograph is in a limited edition of ten, signed and numbered by Denise Scott Brown. The exhibition will also be accompanied by a catalogue, published by PLANESITE and featuring texts by Scott Brown and Andrés Ramirez.
In support of this exhibition, a collage installation of photographs by Scott Brown will also be on display concurrently at Lethaby Gallery, University of the Arts London, Central Saint Martins.